Home rule : a critical consideration

HOME EULE

A CRITICAL CONSIDERATION

By JOHN J. HOB

"As Ireland is necessary to Great Britain, so is eoinM aVtd

perfect liberty necessary to Ireland, and both islands tr.u?i je
drawn much closer to a free constitution, that they may be drawn
closer to one another."— HENKY GEATTAN.

" If you establish an Irish Parliament, give it plenty of work
and plenty of responsibility. Throw the Irish upon themselves.
Make them forget England; let their energies be engaged in Irish
party warfare; but give no Irish party leader an opportunity of
raising an anti-English cry. That is what a good Home Rule Bill
ought to do."— JOHN BEIGHT.

MAUNSEL AND COMPANY, LTD.
96 MIDDLE ABBEY STREET, DUBLIN

1911

All rights reserved

£4

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CONTENTS.

PAGE

Foreword

I. What is Home Rule? ...

II. Where Parnell Stood ...

III. Legislative and Executive Authority

IV. Two Chambers or One

V. The Constitution of the Legislature

VI. Proportional Representation

VII. Irish Representation in the Imperial

Parliament

VIII. The Plundering of Ireland

IX. The Financial Scheme in the Bill of 1886,

X. The Financial Scheme in the Bill of 1893.

XI. Ireland's Present Balance-sheet

XII. English Administration in Ireland

XIII. The Present Financial Problem ...

XIV. Justice, Police and Post Office ...

XV. The Problem of the Intolerant Minority ,

XVI. Conclusion ...

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6
il
16
20
24

30
35
42
47
54
61
66
72
76
83

FOBEWOED.

I am indebted to the Editor of the Leader for permis-
sion to republish in book form the following articles,
which first appeared in his paper and were written at
his request. They are an attempt to explain in a clear
and businesslike way what Nationalist Ireland means
by Home Eule. My object in writing them was two-
fold. First to awaken intelligent discussion in Ireland
concerning the details of Home Kule, and secondly to
place a clear statement of Ireland's demand before fair-
minded Englishmen. It was indeed to compass the
second of these objects that this book has been pub-
lished. I have taken as the standard for discussion the
Home Rule Bill of 1893, because I do not believe that
Irish public opinion will be satisfied with anything less,
and because I hope that English statesmen will have
the courage and foresight to give us something more.
One specious argument is frequently used against a
generous Home Eule Bill by politicians of the Devolu-
tion school. Stated shortly it amounts to this, that
Home Rule should be granted by instalments because
Ireland is not prepared for a measure of full self-govern-
ment. Nothing could be more absurd. The adminis-
trative government of every country is really carried on
by the permanent officials . The representatives of the
people who form the party government of the day
simply direct and influence the permanent officials.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in England, where
the government of the day always acts on consultation,

FOREWORD.

and generally in agreement with, the permanent heads
of the great administrative bodies, such as the Local
Government Board. Whatever the nature of the next
Home Rule Bill, it cannot, any more than did its pre-
decessors, upset the administrative machinery of Irish
government. That machinery must remain, and what-
ever Irish government holds office must act in consulta-
tion with the permanent officials. Changes no doubt
will be effected, and alterations made as time goes on,
but no Act of Parliament can of itself effect them, they
must be the result of experience, consultation, and
commonsense operating through the elected represen-
tatives of the people upon the permanent administra-
tive machinery. Those who wish to study the question
of Irish finance in more detail would do well to read
Miss Murray's standard work, " The Commercial Rela-
tions between England and Ireland," Professor Kettle's
book on " Home Eule Finance," the excellent analysis
of Treasury papers entitled " The Financial Relations of
Ireland with the Imperial Exchequer " by "An Irish-
man," and above all the report of the Childer's Com-
mission. To those English readers who wish to under-
stand the genesis and growth of the Home Rule
movement, three books are indispensable: "Irish
Nationality," by Mrs. J. R. Green; " Contemporary Ire-
land," by M. L. Paul Dubois; and "The Life of
Parnell," by Mr. R. Barry O'Brien.

Lacaduv, Cork,
July, 1911.

HOME RULE.

I._WHAT IS HOME EULE?

rpHE Nationalists of Ireland Have been so long
-*■ demanding Home Eule that it is not to be won-
dered at that the expression " Home Eule'T Eas become
a mere party cry, almost devoid of meaning to the man
in the street. I purpose, therefore, as an introduction
to these articles, on what we may, perhaps, without
being too optimistic, call " the coming Home Eule
Bill," to consider what exactly these two mystic words,
Home Eule, really mean. To put it very briefly, the
demand for Home Eule in Ireland is a demand for
constitutional government. That great constitutional
lawyer, Isaac Butt, speaking at the Home Eule Con-
ference in November 18th, 1883, said: " What is con-
stitutional government? Constitutional government is
this — that, whatever be the form of government — take
it as ours is, a monarchy — the Sovereign carries on the
government of the country by advisers controlled by a
representative assembly of the people."

Now, how does this definition fit in with the present
government of Ireland ? Let us see. Mr. Eedmond
moved a resolution in the House of Commons on March
80th, 1908, which, whilst it is somewhat long, exhaus-
tively shows the difference between constitutional
government and the present government of Ireland.
Here it is : —

That the present system of government in Ireland is in oppo-
sition to the will of the people, and gives them no voice in the
management of their own affairs; that the system is consequently
inefficient and extravagantly costly; that it does not enjoy the
confidence of any section of the population ; that it is productive
of universal discontent and unrest, and is incapable of satisfac-
torily promoting the material and intellectual progress of the
people; that the reform of Irish government is a matter vital

2 WHAT IS HOME RULE?

to the interests of all Ireland anl calculated greatly to promote
the well-being of the people of Great Britain, and in the opinion
of this House the solution of this problem can be obtained only
by giving the Irish people the legislative and executive control
of all purely Irish affairs, subject to the supreme authority of
the Imperial Parliament.

This resolution, which was passed by 313 votes to 157,
embodies the demand of the Irish people, and has since
been adopted by the present Prime Minister as the
policy of the Government in his famous Albert Hall
speech, and re-affirmed during the recent debate
on the Home Rule amendment to the Address
both by the Government and Mr. Redmond.
When all is said and done, the demand for
Home Rule is based on the simple and unanswerable
fact that the government of Ireland is unconstitutional
— namely, it is not answerable to the Irish people, but
to an English Government. From this follows all else,
its inefficiency, its extravagant cost, it's incapacity to
promote the welfare of Ireland. Grattan's Parliament,
of which we read so much, and about which we often
seem to know very little, was not really a constitutional
body. If it had been answerable to the people of Ire-
land, it would never have passed the Act of
Union. It was elected on a very restricted franchise,
and its ministers went out of office with the English
Government of the day. They were dependent, there-'
fore, for office, not on the Irish electors, but on English
parties. Moreover, they had no voice whatever in
Imperial affairs. O'Connell's original demand was for
the Repeal of the Union, and the revival of Grattan's
Parliament. That demand he subsequently modified,
as will appear from the following letter, which he
addressed to the Repeal Association in October, 1844 : —

Both parties are agreed that those powers should be sufficiently
extensive to enable the Irish Parliament to protect the lives,
liberties and property of the people. That is, it should have the
power to enact all the laws to be in force in Ireland — in short,
that it should be an efficient Parliament for all legislative, finan-
cial and judicial purposes within her Majesty's realm of Ire-
land. The simple Repealers are of opinion that the reconstituted
Irish Parliament should have the same power and authority
which the former Irish Parliament had. The " Federalists,"
on the contrary, appear to me to require more for Ireland than

WHAT IS HOME RULE? 3

the simple Repealers do; for besides the 5ocal Parliament in Ire-
land having full and perfect local authority, the Federalists
require that there should be, for questions of Imperial concern,
colonial, military and naval, and of foreign alliance and policy,
a Congressional or Federal Parliament, in which Ireland should
have a fair share and proportion of representation and power.
It is but right and just to confess that in this respect the
Federalists would give Ireland more weight and importance in
Imperial concerns than she would receive by the plan of the
simple Repealers. . . . For my own part, I will own, since I
have come to contemplate the specific differences, such as they
are, between " simple Repeal " and Federalism, I do at present
feel a preference for the Federal plan as tending more to the
utility of Ireland.

We, therefore, find O'Connell advocating, in 1844,
Home Rule on Federal lines, so that the quack prophets
of the Tory Party can scarcely continue to claim that
they discovered it in 1910. Let Mr. Garvin, of the
" Observer," bellow ever so loudly, the fact remains
that the Federal solution has been accepted by every
leader of the Irish constitutional movement from
O'Connell to Mr. Redmond. The great Home Rule
Conference of 1873, which initiated Isaac Butt's move-
ment, formulated the Irish claim in a series of historic
resolutions, the fourth of which reads as follows: —

That in claiming these rights and privileges for our country
(i.e., an Irish Parliament), we adopt the principle of a Federal
arrangement which would secure to the Irish Parliament the
right of legislating for and regulating all matters relating to the
internal affairs of Ireland, while leaving to the Imperial Parlia-
ment the power of dealing with all questions affecting the
Imperial Crown and Government, legislation regarding the
Colonies and other dependencies of the Crown, the relations of
the Empire with foreign States, and aU matters appertaining to
the defence and stability of the Empire at large, as well as the
power of granting and providing the supplies necessary for
Imperial purposes.

This resolution illustrates the continuity of the Home
Rule demand, inasmuch as, without altering a comma,
one might put it forward as the Irish claim to-day. The
Home Rule Bill of 1886 departed, it is true, from the
Federal principle, as, under it, Irish representation in
the House of Commons was to cease, but we know that
this departure was due to Mr. Gladstone, and not to
the Irish Party. Mr. Parncll had an open mind on the

4 WHAT IS HOME RULE?

question, as he admitted to Cecil Rhodes. He did not
greatly care whether the Irish members were retained
or not. Mr. Gladstone, however, was strongly opposed
to their retention. Afterwards, as we know, he changed
his mind, and the Bill of 1893 provided for the retention
of the Irish representatives in the House of Commons.
The following letter from Parnell to Rhodes gives his
final views on the subject : —

June 23rd, 1888.

Dear Sir, — I am much obliged to you for your letter of the
9th inst., which confirms the very interesting account given me
at Avondale last January by Mr. MacNeill as to his interviews
and conversations with you on the subject of Home Rule for
Ireland. I may say at once, and frankly, that you correctly
judged the exclusion of the Irish members from Westminster to
have been a defect in the Home Rule measure of 1886; and,
further, that this proposed exclusion may have given some colour
to the accusation so freely made against the Bill that it had a
separatist tendency. I say this while strongly asserting and
believing that the measure itself was accepted by the Irish people
without any afterthought of the kind, and with an earnest desire
to work it out with the same spirit with which it was offered — a
spirit of cordial good-will and trust, a desire to let bygones be
bygones, and a determination to accept it as a final and satis-
factory settlement of the long-standing dispute between Great
Britain and Ireland.

I am very glad that you consider the measure of Home Rule to
be granted to Ireland should be thoroughgoing, and should give
her complete control over her own affairs without reservation,, and
I cordially agree with your opinion that there should be effective
safeguards for the maintenance of Imperial unity. Your conclu-
sion as to the only alternative for Home Rule is also entirely my
own, for I have long felt that the continuance of the present semi-
constitutional system is quite impracticable. But to return to
the question of the retention of the Irish members at Westminster.
My own views upon the points and probabilities of the future,
and the bearing of this subject upon the question of Imperial
federation — my own feeling upon the measure is that if Mr. Glad-
stone includes in his next Home Rule measure the provisions of
such retention we should cheerfully concur with him; and accept
them with good-will and good faith, with the intention of taking
our share in the Imperial partnership. I believe also that in the
event I state this will be the case, and that the Irish people will
cheerfully accept the duties and responsibilities assigned to them,
and will justly value the position given to them in the Imperial
system. I am convinced that it would be the highest statesman-
ship on Mr. Gladstone's part to devise a feasible plan for the con-
tinued presence of the Irish members here, and from my obser-
vation of public events and opinions since 1885, I am sure that

WHAT IS HOME RULE? 5

Mr. Gladstone is fully alive to the importance of the matter, and
that there can be no doubt that the next measure of autonomy
for Ireland will contain the provisions which you rightly deem
of such moment.

It does not come so much within my province to express a full
opinion upon the larger question of Imperial federation, but I
agree with you that the continued Irish representation at West-
minster immensely facilitates such a steo while the contrary
provision in the Bill of 1886 would have been a bar. Undoubtedly
this is a matter which should be dealt with in accordance largely
with the opinion of the colonies themselves, and if they should
desire to share in the cost of Imperial matters, as undoubtedly
they now do in the responsibility, and should express a wish for
representation at Westminster, I certainly think it should be
accorded to them, and that public opinion in these islands would
unanimously concur in the necessary constitutional modifications.

I am, dear Sir, yours truly,

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL.

To sum up, in Mr. Redmond's words, when we speak
of Home Rule, " we mean an Irish Parliament with an
executive responsible to it, created by Act of the Im-
perial Parliament, and charged with the management
of purely Irish affairs, leaving to the Imperial Parlia-
ment, in which Ireland would continue to be repre-
sented, the management, as at present, of all Imperial
affairs.,, This is the broad principle, but what of the
details? "We stand," says Mr. Redmond, "where
Parnell stood." In the following articles I will enter
into the details of Home Rule, and consider more
fully where Parnell stood.

II— WHEKEPABNELL STOOD.

^ PEAKING in Cork on January 21st, 1885, Parnell
^ made the famous declaration: — "We cannot
ask for less than the restitution of Grattan's Parlia-
ment, with its important privileges and wide, far-
reaching constitution. We cannot, under the British
constitution, ask for more than the restitution of Grat-
tan's Parliament. But no man has a right to fix the
boundary of the march of a nation. No man has a
right to say, ' Thus far shalt thou go, and no further;'
and we have never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra
to the progress of Ireland's nationhood, and we never
shall." I have no doubt that when the new Home
Kule Bill is introduced, this statement of Parnell 's will
be quoted by the extreme critics of the Irish Party and
we shall be told that Parnell would never accept such
a measure of Home Piule. That eminent crank, Mr.
Frank Hugh O'Donnell, trotted it out a short time ago
with that very object, but unfortunately for the value
of his criticism, he himself shortly afterwards wrote a
history of the Irish Party, which commends Butt's
federal scheme as the only practical solution of the
Irish problem, anentirely different thing from Grattan's
Parliament. Three things have to be remembered
about this declaration of Parnell's. First of all, when
he made it both English parties were nibbling at Home
Eule, and, able strategist as he was, he knew that he
must ask for as much as possible if he was to get any-
thing useful. Secondly, Parnell's ignorance of the
details of Irish history was tremendous. We find him
in that very month of January, 1885, two days after
he had made the declaration about Grattan's Parlia-
ment, saying to his friend, Mr. M. J. Horgan, of Cork,
just before he was to deliver a lecture on ' ' Ireland and
Her Parliament": "I really do not know anything
about Irish history. Have you got any books I can

WHERE PARNELL STOOD. 7

read?"* I therefore doubt very much whether when
he made this declaration about Grattan's Parliament
he had at all considered the powers of that Parliament
or its relations to Irish life and imperial affairs. What
confirms me in this opinion is the fact that we have full
and complete details of the scheme he was eventually
willing to accept as a full measure of Home Rule, and
this scheme is entirely different from G rattan's Parlia-
ment. Mr. Barry O'Brien, at the suggestion of Mr.
Gladstone, wrote a series of articles on Home Rule in
the autumn of 1885. Before these articles were written
the following interesting discussion took place, and is
set out in Mr. O'Brien's life of Parnell. t I make no
apology for quoting it in full, as it gives very clearly
Parnell's final position with reference to the main de-
tails of Home Rule : —

A few days before Mr. Gladstone left Hawarden for Midlothian,
I received a letter from the publicist whom I have already men-
tioned, saying : — " When can we have a talk about your second
article ? Would to-morrow suit you ?" I called on the morrow.
" Now," he said, " I think the time has come to have an article
on Home Rule. What I should like you to tell me is, not what
you think would be the best system, but what Mr. Parnell would
accept. We want to get Mr. Parnell's mind on paper." I then
stated the points on which I thought Parnell would insist, and
the points on which he would be prepared to accept a compro-
mise or give way : —

1. There must be an Irish Parliament and an Irish Executive
for the management of Irish affairs. No system of local govern-
ment would do. It was not local, but national government which
the Irish people wanted.

2. Parnell would not stand out upon the question whether
there should be one or two chambers. He would be quite willing
to follow Gladstone's lead on that point

3. Neither would he stand out on the question whether the
Irish members should remain in the Imperial Parliament or
be excluded from it. The Catholic Church would certainly be
in favour of their retention in order that Catholic interests might
be represented, but the bulk of the Irish Nationalists would not
really care one way or the other. The chances are that if they
were retained they would rarely attend.

* See Barry O'Brien's " Life of Parnell," p. 318.

t Anyone who takes the slightest interest in modern Irish His-
tory should purchase and read this book. It can be now bought
for a shilling in the Nelson Library of Notable Books* and is
more interesting than any novel.

8 WHERE PARNELL STOOD.

4. What would be Irish and what Imperial affairs? This
really was the crux of the whole scheme.

(a) Irish affairs — Irish affairs should include land, education,
law and justice, police, customs.

Publicist — "Are you sure about the police?"

" Certainly. Parnell would insist upon the police. If you
refused he would make the refusal a casus belli. I have no
doubt about that."

Publicist— " Well, customs?"

" Parnell would certainly like the customs. He wants protec-
tion for Irish industries, for a time, at all events."

Publicist — " Well, he won't get it. That much is perfectly
clear. We won't give him the customs. Would he make the
refusal a casus belli V

"No; if you give him land, education, law and justice, and
police, he would be satisfied ; but these things are vital. He
would, however, make a fight for the customs, I think."

(b) Imperial affairs — Imperial affairs should include foreign
policy (peace or war), the army and navy, the Crown, the cur-
rency and the post office.

" The Irish would not trouble themselves much about Impe-
rial affairs. What they want is to have the building up of their
own nation in their own hands. Give them an Irish Parliament
with full power for the government of Ireland, and they would
let the British run the Empire."

This resume of Mr. Barry O'Brien's gives us practi-
cally the position Parnell did take up when the details
of the Home Rule Bill came to be discussed. On April 8,
1886, Mr. Gladstone moved the first reading of the
Home Eule Bill.

He proposed to establish an Irish Parliament and an
Irish executive for the management and control of Irish
affairs, reserving to the Imperial Parliament the fol-
lowing subjects : The Crown, peace or war, the army,
navy, militia, volunteers, defence, etc., foreign and
colonial relations, dignities, titles of honour, treason,
trade, post office, coinage. Besides these " exceptions"
the Irish Parliament was forbidden to make any laws
respecting [inter alia) the endowment of religion, or in
restraint of educational freedom, or relating to the
customs or excise. The Dublin Metropolitan Police
were to remain under Imperial control for two years,
and the Royal Irish Constabulary for an indefinite
period; but eventually all the Irish police were to be
handed over to the Irish Parliament. Ireland's con-
tribution to the Imperial Revenue was to be in proper-

WHERE PARNELL STOOD. 9

tion of one-fifteenth to the whole. All constitutional
questions relating to the powers of the Irish Parlia-
ment were to be submitted to the Judicial Committee
of the English Privy Council. The Irish members were
to be excluded from the Imperial Parliament. This,
in rough outline, was the Home Eule Bill of 1886.
Parnell accepted it. He accepted, moreover, fully and
without reserve, the supremacy of the Imperial Parlia-
ment. The following passage from one of his speeches
on the Bill explains his position : —

We have always known since the introduction of this Bill the
difference between a co-ordinate and a subordinate Parliament,
and we have recognised that the Legislature which the Prime
Minister proposes to constitute is a subordinate Parliament.
. . . Undoubtedly I should have preferred the restitution of
Grattan's Parliament, . . . but I consider that there are
practical advantages connected with the proposed statutory body,
limited and subordinate to this Imperial Parliament as it
undoubtedly will be, which will render it much more useful and
advantageous to the Irish people than was Grattan's Parlia-
ment. . . .

I understand the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament to be
this — that they can interfere in the event oi the powers which
are conferred by this Bill being abused under certain circum-
stances. But the Nationalists, m accepting this Bill, go, as I
think, under an honourable understanding not to abuse those
powers; and we pledge ourselves in that respect for the Irish
people, as far as we can pledge ourselves, not to abuse those
powers and to devote our energies and our influences ... to
prevent those powers being abused.

The Imperial Parliament will have at command the force which
it reserves to itself, and it will be ready to intervene, but only
in the case of grave necessity arising.

I believe that this is by far the best mode in which we can
hope to settle this question. We look upon the provisions of
this Bill as a final settlement of the question, and I believe that
the Irish people have accepted it as such a settlement.

This passage clearly shows that he had entirely aban-
doned Grattan's Parliament as the standard of the Irish
demand, if, indeed, he had ever seriously set it up.
The Home Eule Bill of 1886, as we know, never reached
the House of Lords. The House of Commons rejected
it by a majority of 30. The defection of Mr. Chamber-
lain and his followers killed it. Parnell did not live to
see the introduction of the Home Eule Bill of 1893, but
we know that he approved of its main proposals and

B

10 WHERE PARNELL STOOD.

that they formed the subject of consultation between
himself and Mr. Gladstone.

How far he would have tried to modify the Bill had
lie lived we cannot say, but I think we can be quite
certain that he would have accepted the Bill when it
left the House of Commons as a full and satisfactory
measure of self-government. Bearing these facts in
mind, and comparing Mr. Asquith's policy with the
Bill of 1893, I think Mr. Redmond is entirely justified
in saying that he stands where Parnell stood. The
Bill of 1893, therefore, represents the final result of
Parnell's labours. It is the high- water mark of Home
Rule legislation. Remembering this, I shall proceed
to consider that Bill step by step, applying to it such
criticism as the changed condition of things may sug-
gest, and not forgetting '* to walk by the light of com-
monsense in the domain of reality."

III.— LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE
AUTHOBITY.

SPEAKING at the Oxford Union Debating Society
a few days after I had written my previous
article, Mr. Birrell made the following remarkable
statement: —

At the same time if they had full opportunity of reading
the Bill of 1893 it would be seen that what was proposed
would be something like that, subject to the alterations and
the changes and the modifications which the times that
had gone by since then had taught all wise and rational
men. The nature of the Home Rule measure would be a
National Parliament with restricted powers, subject to a
National Executive.

This proves clearly that the Government intend to
make the Bill of 1893 the basis of the pending legisla-
tion, and I think fully justifies a serious dissection of
that Bill. The first thing we have to consider is the
legislative and executive authority of the Irish Parlia-
ment— that is, the sort of laws it will be able to make
and the manner in which those laws will be enforced.
The preamble or preface of the 1893 Bill (which, by
the way, was introduced amongst others by Mr. Secre-
tary Asquith) is as follows: —

Whereas it is expedient that without impairing or restrict-
ing the supreme authority of Parliament, an Irish legisla-
ture should be created for such purposes in Ireland as in
this Act mentioned.

The first clause goes on to enact : —

On and after the appointed day there shall be in Ireland
a legislature consisting of His Majesty the King and of two
houses, the Legislative Council and the Legislative
Assembly.

I do not purpose in this article to consider the question
of whether the new Irish Parliament ought to consist
of two houses or one, but purpose rather to discuss its
powers, whether it consist of two chambers or one.

12 LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY.

The consideration of the two-chamber question, and,
incidentally, of Mr. Sheehy-Skeffington's views
thereon, will arise more naturally when I come to dis-
cuss how the Irish Parliament is to be constituted.
What, then, were the powers given to the Irish Parlia-
ment by the Bill of 1893 ? It enacted that, with the
exceptions and subject to the restrictions set out in the
Act, there should be granted to the Irish Legislature
power to make laws for the peace, order, and good
government of Ireland in respect of matters exclu-
sively relating to Ireland or some part thereof. The
Irish Legislature was not to make laws concerning the
following matters: —

1. The Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a
Regency ; or the Lord Lieutenant as representative of the
Crown.

2. The making of peace or war, or matters arising from
a state of war.

3. Naval or military forces, or the defence of the realm.

4. Treaties and other relations with foreign states, or the
relations between different parts of Her Majesty's dominions,
or offences connected with such treaties or relations.

5. Dignities or titles of honour.

6. Treason, treason-felony, alienage, or naturalization.

7. Trade with any place out of Ireland; or quarantine,
or navigation (except as regards inland waters and local
health or harbour regulations).

8. Beacons, lighthouses, or sea-marks (except so far as
they can consistently with any general Act of Parliament
be constructed or maintained by a local harbour authority).

9. Coinage, legal tender; or the standard of weights and
measures.

10. Trade marks, merchandise marks, copyright or patent
rights.

In addition to these exceptions it was also laid down
that the powers of the Irish Legislature should not
extend to the making of any law —

1. Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

2. Imposing any disability, or conferring any privilege,
on account of religious belief.

3. Abrogating or prejudicially affecting the right to estab-
lish or maintain any place of denominational education or
any denominational institution or charity.

LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. 13

4. Prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend
a school receiving public money, without attending the
religious instruction at that school.

5. Whereby any person may be deprived of life, liberty,
or property without due process of law, or may be denied
the equal protection of the laws, or whereby private pro-
perty may be taken without just compensation.

6. Whereby any existing Corporation, incorporated by
Royal Charter or by any local or general Act of Parliament
(not being a Corporation raising for public purposes taxes,
rates, cess, dues, or tolls, or administering funds so raised)
may, unless it consents, or the leave of His Majesty is first
obtained on address from the two houses of the Irish Legis-
lature, be deprived of its rights, privileges, or property,
without due process of law.

7. Whereby any inhabitant of the United Kingdom may
be deprived of equal rights as respects public sea fisheries.

There are two points upon which it seems to me that
we ought to seek for amendment of these restrictions.
First, we should not be prevented from making laws
as to the standard of weights and measures. The
English standard weights and measures are entirely
obsolete, and it would be of enormous importance com-
mercially if an Irish Parliament were left free to intro-
duce the metric system, and so bring Ireland into
touch with the rest of Europe. I do not think it would
be difficult to get this concession, more particularly
as the introduction of the metric system has been
seriously mooted already in England, and it could not
be called a revolutionary change. It is one that would
certainly tend to enormously simplify education and
commerce. Secondly, I think that the Irish Party
should most strongly insist on the removal of the
restriction concerning trade mark, copyright, and
patent legislation. England is very tenacious as
regards her commercial rights, and I imagine the
removal of this restriction would meet with strong
opposition. But even supposing that we could not
get a full concession on this point, we should certainly
insist on getting powers to legislate concerning the
Irish National Trade Mark and the trade marks of all
Irish manufacturers. There can be little doubt that
the creation of a national board to regulate the Irish

14 LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY.

Trade Mark and Irish trade, or, rather, the re-creation
of the Department as the Irish Department of Agricul-
ture and Trade, with full power to control the Irish
National Trade Mark, should be one of the first acts of
an Irish Parliament. Such a body, with someone con-
versant with Irish industrial needs (such as Mr. E. J.
Kiordan, of the Irish Industrial Association) at the head
of its trade department, would soon work wonders for
Irish commerce.

What may be called the religious restrictions on the
powers of an Irish Parliament are no doubt somewhat
ridiculous, and to some extent offensive, but it is not
to be wondered at that the raving of the Orange bigots
has created such a condition of mind even amongst
singularly clear-headed and logical Englishmen that we
must accept these restrictions as a necessary part of
any Home Rule Bill, and as no Irish Catholic has the
slightest ambition to enact such laws it cannot be said
that these restrictions greatly matter.

The provisions of the Bill as to executive authority
are, shortly, as follows: — The executive power is to
continue, as at present, vested in the King and in the
Lord Lieutenant as his representative. The Lord
Lieutenant as the King's representative will summon,
prorogue, and dissolve the Irish Parliament, just as the
King does the Parliament of England. An Executive
Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland will aid and
advise in the government of Ireland, being of such
numbers and comprising persons holding such offices
as His Majesty may think fit or as may be directed by
Irish Act. The Lord Lieutenant will, on the advice of
the said Executive Committee, give or withhold the
assent of His Majesty to Bills passed by the Irish
Legislature, subject, nevertheless, to any instructions
given by His Majesty in respect of any such Bill.
This means that such an Executive Committee of the
Privy Council would advise the King as to the use of
his veto on legislation passed by the Irish Parliament.
The real meaning of these provisions could only appear
in the application thereof. I think that the King
would be very slow to exercise such a veto, and that
if the Irish Legislature acted with any sort of tact and

LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. 15

moderation it would really be a dead letter. Neither
would an Executive Committee of the Privy Council,
on which sooner or later a large proportion of repre-
sentative Irishmen in touch with the people would sit,
be anxious to act aggressively towards an IriBh Parlia-
ment.

The important feature of this section of the Bill is
that it gives no power of veto to the Imperial Parlia-
ment, which would stand, therefore, in the same
relation to the Irish Parliament as it does to that of
Canada or South Africa. This is one of the things that
differentiate the Home Eule Bill of 1893 from the
Devolution proposals beloved of Lord MacDonnell and
Lord Dunraven. No one can doubt that a power of
veto by the English Parliament would destroy all
sense of national responsibility and be a perpetual
cause of national irritation. The English Parliament
will have the power to take away entirely the Irish
Parliament it gives us, but Ireland must see to it that
the English Parliament will have no power to veto or
alter the acts of the Irish Parliament. Such a power
would reduce the Irish Parliament to the legislative
level of a Town Council.

IV.— TWO CHAMBERS OR ONE ?

THE Home Rule Hill of 1893 provided, as I have
already stated, for the creation of an Irish Par-
liament, consisting of two chambers — a Legislative
Council and a Legislative Assembly. Before discussing
the franchise on which these chambers are to be elected,
or the number of members they are to contain, I pur-
pose to consider in this article the first and equally
important question, whether the Irish Parliament
ought to consist of two chambers or one. Mr. Sheehy-
Skefimgton, in a recent lecture on the Home Rule legis-
lature, strongly advocated a single chamber, on the
grounds that a second chamber would diminish the re-
sponsibility of the members of the Lower House, that
the number of men qualified for public life is necessarily
limited, and that the Executive would be responsible
not to one, but to both Houses — a position disastrous to
representative government. Let me say at once that I
entirely disagree with him. I consider that an Irish
Legislative Assembly is much more likely to develop a
sense of responsibility when it knows that its legislation
is subject to the revision of a Legislative Council. He
comments somewhat sarcastically on our habit of pass-
ing resolutions unanimously which we do not agree with,
and possibly do not understand. I entirely fail to see
how the creation of a single Legislative Chamber would
in any way act as a preventative of hasty and ill-
considered legislation. On the contrary, I should
imagine it would encourage it. Here is just where the
serious side of the matter comes in. The Irish
Assembly will, as we have seen, be subject to the veto
of the Crown, a veto exercised, of course, on
the advice of the Irish Privy Council. I think
it is quite obvious that the temptation to veto the
acts of one chamber would be much greater than to veto
the acts of two chambers — particularly when the Second

TWO CHAMBERS OR ONE? 17

Chamber had within reasonable limits the powers of
revision and delay. Perhaps Mr. Skemngton's demo-
cratic soul has been biassed by lengthy contemplation
of the struggle between the House of Lords and the
House of Commons. Now, it is quite obvious that the
Irish Legislative Council would not be a hereditary
body, and would not possess the same powers as the
House of Lords. Nothing could be better or more
reasonable to my mind than the clause of the 1893 Bill,
which dealt with differences between the two chambers.
Here it is : —

" If a Bill—or any provision of a Bill — adopted by the Legislative
Assembly is lost by the disagreement of the Legislative Council
and after a dissolution, or the period cf two years from such
disagreement, such Bill, or a Bill for enacting the said provisions,
is again adopted by the Legislative Assemoly. and fails within
three months afterwards to be adopted by the Legislative Council,
the same shall forthwith be submitted to the members of the two
Houses deliberating and voting thereon, and shall be adopted or
rejected according to the decision of the majority of those members
present and voting on the question."

In other words, the Legislative Council or Second
Chamber would have reasonable powers of revision and
delay, always remembering that the Irish Second Cham-
ber would be an elected body, and not an hereditary
one, and, therefore, subject to that somewhat elusive
thing, the will of the people. Mr. Skemngton, on the
contrary, desires a Single Chamber, subject to no criti-
cism or delay save the veto of the Crown. Surely
the natural result of such a condition of affairs would
be that the Crown would exercise its veto in the same
manner as a Second Chamber would exercise its powers
of revision and delay, and so cause unnecessary irrita-
tion and annoyance, if it did not entirely maim and
ruin the Irish Parliament. It would create a condition
of things as unfair to the Crown as it would be unfair to
Ireland. Mr. Skemngton's argument from other coun-
tries is entirely beside the point. There is no foreign
veto exercised over Bulgaria or Norway, and their
national position is entirely different from that of Ire-
land. Neither are the Canadian provincial legislatures
cases in point. As a matter of fact, some of

18 TWO CHAMBERS OR ONE?

the provincial legislatures in Canada have second
chambers. What we want in Ireland is a National
Parliament, and not a Provincial Assembly. Mr.
Skeffington 's second objection, that there are not a suffi-
cient number of competent public men in Ireland to
provide members for two Chambers, is hardly a serious
one. I think the complaint is surely the other way
round. I think it is quite obvious that many public
men, who are quite competent to become first-class
legislators, are to be found in Ireland, and that many
of them have been deterred from taking part in politics
up to the present owing to the abnormal condition of
Irish political life. These men, almost entirely con-
servative, in the non-political sense of that word, would
form the backbone of an Irish Parliament. Mr. Skef-
fington's contention, that a state of things in which the
executive is responsible to both houses is a position
disastrous to representative government, is, on the face
of it, ridiculous. The enormous majority of civilised
countries are governed in this way, and without any
disaster to representative government.

But the final and disastrous objection to a Single
Chamber Irish Parliament is one that Mr. Skeffington
does not seem to have seriously considered at all,
namely — what other security of an equally satisfactory
nature can we offer to the Protestant minority in this
country ? A Second Chamber, elected on a partially
restricted franchise, is, to my mind, the best of all safe-
guards from their point of view, and, this being so, we
may be quite sure that a Second Chamber will form
part of the coming Home Rule Bill, as it did of its pre-
decessor. But even if there was no anxious minority
in this country, I am still of opinion that a Second
Chamber would be both necessary and useful if the Irish
Parliament is to be a success.

The point to be emphasised is that a Second Chamber
is necessary as a safeguard against a chance majority
on some large question, for which there is no mandate
from the people.

I believe Mr. Skeffington claims to have inherited the
political mantle of the late Michael Davitt. Parnell's
biographer records a characteristic conversation between

TWO CHAMBERS OR ONE? 19

Davitt and Parnell. Davitt asked Parnell what he
would do if he (Davitt) took up a certain attitude
towards a Home Kule Government. Parnell's reply, if
somewhat laconic, was certainly conclusive. " I should
lock you up," he said. Can it be that Mr. Skeffington
fears a similar fate at the hands of an Irish Legislative
Council ?

V.— THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEGIS-
LATIVE.

HAVING accepted the creation of two chambers m
■ an indispensable portion of any Home Kule Par-
liament, let us now consider trie franchise on which
these chambers are to be elected, and the number of
representatives to sit in each. The Billof 1893, as I
have already mentioned, provided for two chambers —
a Legislative Council and a Legislative Assembly. The
Legislative Council was to consist of forty-eight coun-
cillors elected by the following constituencies : — An-
trim, three members; Belfast borough, two; Cork
County, three; Down, three; Dublin County, three;
Dublin Borough, two; Galway County, two; Limerick
County, two; Tipperary County, two; and Cork
Borough, one. All the other counties to have one re-
presentative each except Leitrim and Sligo, which were
to be amalgamated and have one member between
them. This scheme of representation was evidently
drawn up on the basis of population, and seems to me
to be a reasonable one. The right to vote for the elec-
tion of these councillors was based on a property qualifi-
cation— namely, the owning or occupying of any land or
tenement of a rateable value of more than twenty
pounds. Provision was also made by which no elector
was entitled to be registered, nor if registered, to vote
at an election of councillor in more than one con-
stituency in the same year. In other words, plural
voting was abolished, and a person who owned lands or
houses of the requisite value in several constituencies
could only vote in one. The term of office of every
councillor was to be eight years, and was not to be
affected by a dissolution ; and one-half of the councillors
were to retire every four years, their seats to be filled
by a new election. The Legislative Council, as I have
stated in my last article, was to have powers of revision

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEGISLATURE. 21

and delay within reasonable limits, and subject to a
joint sitting of the two Houses as a final court of appeal.
I think it is quite obvious that, once the principle of a
second chamber is accepted, it follows, as a matter of
course, that such a chamber must be smaller in number
than the more popular assembly, and must be elected
on a restricted franchise. This being so, I think there can
be little doubt that the provisions of the Bill of 1893 are
entirely reasonable, and would result in the election of a
Legislative Council sufficiently in touch with popular
feeling not to be anti-national or retrogressive, and
sufficiently conservative (in a non-political sense) to
exercise a wise veto and restraining power over the
Legislative Assembly. It would certainly offer an abso-
lute guarantee of fair play to the Protestant minority.
Although the question of election by proportional repre-
sentation is undoubtedly an open one, as far as the
Legislative Assembly is concerned, and I hope to dis-
cuss it fully in a succeeding article. I do not think that
it would be a necessary or desirable method for electing
a Legislative Council of forty-eight members on a
restricted franchise. Let us now consider the Legisla-
tive Assembly. The Bill of 1893 provided that the
Legislative Assembly should consist of one hundred and
three members to be returned by the existing Parlia-
mentary constituencies in Ireland, and elected by the
Parliamentary electors for the time being in those con-
stituencies. It was to have continuance for five years
from the date on which it was summoned unless sooner
dissolved. The Irish Legislature (namely, the two
chambers) was to have power, six years after the passing
of the Bill, to alter the qualification of the electors, and
the constituencies, and the distribution of the members
among the constituencies, provided that, in such distri-
bution, due regard was had to the population of the
constituencies. A Legislative Assembly of 103 mem-
bers is certainly not too large — the question that sug-
gests itself is, whether it is not too small. Holland,
with a population of nearly the same size as Ireland, has
a Legislative Assembly of 100 members, but Greece and
Norway, with much smaller populations, have Legisla-
tive Assemblies numbering respectively 234 and 114. I

22 THE CONSTITUTION OP THE LEGISLATURE.

hardly think that a Legislative Assembly of 103 would
be sufficiently representative of all shades of opinion in
Ireland, and, if a system of proportional representation
wi'vc in force, it would scarcely give sufficient scope for
its working. A chamber of 150 members would pro-
bably be a more satisfactory solution; it certainly
should not exceed 200. Any number over 200 would be
inefficient, incapable of proper deliberation and full
debate, and would probably get into very much the
same condition as the present House of Commons,
where, as we have been somewhat abruptly
reminded of late, the independent private mem-
ber is, to some extent, shut out from debate.
In any event, as long - as the Gladstonian
standard of 103 members is not decreased, the question
of whether it is to be increased or not is hardly likely to
be made a casus belli. Whatever franchise the Irish
Parliament may eventually adopt, it is clear that, for
the first couple of years, the members of the Legislative
Assembly should be elected on the existing Parliamen-
tary franchise, but plural voting should be made illegal.
To suggest, as Mr. Sheehy-Skeffington does in his recent
lecture, that they should be elected on the present Local
Government register, which includes peers and women,
would be the very negation of the whole principle on
which the demand for Home Eule is based, because it
would extend the principle of female suffrage to Ireland
without consulting the country one way or the other as
to whether it wanted it or not. It would be somewhat
the same thing as if there were a clause in the Bill nomi-
nating Mr. Sheehy-Skeffington first Irish Prime Minis-
ter. Now, whatever may be one's view about Votes for
Women, one is certainly entitled to be consulted before
the principle is adopted by an Irish Parliament. Any-
one that knows the strong conservative under-current in
Irish politics would certainly be surprised if a Female
Suffrage Bill passed the Irish Parliament at all. It cer-
tainly would not do so on the first journey. " But,"
says Mr. Skeffington, " if we do not agree to votes for
women being embodied in the Home Paile Bill, we
shall have processions of ladies marching to College
Green, and being kept from assaulting the Irish Cabinet

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEGISLATURE. 23

by the D.M.P." Surely this is not a serious argument.
On similar grounds, we might ask to have a clause in
the Home Kule Bill preventing the playing of barrel .
organs within 300 yards of College Green, lest the men-
tal activities of our legislators should be impeded
thereby. Mr. Skeffington also suggests that illiterates
should not be given votes, but again, this is a question
for an Irish Parliament to decide. What a very different
welcome compulsory Irish* would have had, had it
been imposed upon us by English statute instead of by
Irish public opinion. The leaders of the female suffrage
movement must put their case before the Irish electo-
rate, and abide by its decision. A demand for its in-
clusion in a Home Kule Bill only means that they have
a weak case, or that they despair of carrying it through
an Irish Parliament. In either event, they have no
excuse for imposing it on the country without its con-
sent. The present leaders of the women's suffrage
movement are only asking for votes for a small and well-
to-do section of the female population. Personally, both
as a lawyer with some experience of the difficulties
which surround the compilation of a register based on
a property qualification, and as a democrat who believes
in the full voice of the nation being heard, I should hope
to see our Irish Parliament adopt adult suffrage before
it was many years in existence. This would give every
man and woman over 21 a vote, and abolish the endless
complications of the present franchise.

*At the request of the Irish County Councils and Irish public
opinion the Irish language was made an essential subject in the
program of the National University.

24 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

VI.— PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

HPHE whole question of proportional representation
<*- as part of a Home Rule Bill has been raised in
a most dramatic and effective manner by Lord Court-
ney's letter to Mr. Sexton and by his recent
address in Dublin. It is well to remember
who Lord Courtney is. He was one of the most deter-
mined opponents to the Home Rule Bill of 1893. He
is still a Unionist, but he is a Unionist who recognises
that Home Rule is inevitable, and recognising that, he
is anxious that Ireland should get the best kind of Home
Rule possible. " A country," he writes, " is self-
governed with a representative Parliament because the
country is in Parliament and feels that it acts and
speaks through it. The secret of English contentment
in the days of a grotesque organization of Parliament
lay in the belief that after all a nation governed itself
through Parliament."

" Our habitual language expressed and repeated the
belief. Grattan's Parliament was absurd enough as a
representation of Irishmen, yet even in respect of it
something of the same kind was felt, and the echo
remains with us. Let us make our national assembly
as representative as we can. Let us try to get in it
the best men of all kinds in a fair relation to one an-
other. It cannot be free from faults. There will be
at Dublin, as at Westminster, intrigues, manoeuvres,
petty ambitions, mean jealousies, and yet we may hope
for an ascendency of Parliamentary feeling, as sense
of a body the members of which must in the end be
found working for the common good. Our best assur-
ance for the future must be found in the composition of
a Parliament representing all Ireland."

These are wise and weighty words, and no one can
doubt that the ideal which Lord Courtney suggests of

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 25

an Irish Parliament representing all sections of Irish-
men according to their numerical strength, is one well
worth striving for.

Lord Courtney suggests it should be achieved by
proportional representation. What is proportional
representation? It has nothing to say to the
qualification which entitles one to vote ; it con-
cerns itself entirely with the method in which one
votes. It is, in short, a system of voting which aims
at reproducing the opinions of the electors in their true
proportions and at securing that the majority of elec-
tors shall rule and all considerable minorities be heard.
The first step towards proportional representation would
be to unite the existing constituencies into larger ones
returning three or more members each, having regard
to natural divisions of the country, such as large towns,
counties or parts of counties, and to give each consti-
tuency so formed a number of members proportionate
to its electorate. Large towns, such as Dublin and
Belfast, might be formed into five-member constitu-
encies. Most, if not all, of the other Irish constitu-
encies would be three-member constituencies. It would
be quite easy to work out a scheme for Ireland on these
lines. Having created the large constituencies, it only
remains to decide elections by a proportionate system.
The best of these systems, if one may judge by results,
is that known as the Single Transferable Vote, and if
proportional representation is adopted in Ireland it is
certainly the system we ought to follow. The manner
in which this system of proportional voting is carried
out is as follows : —

1. Each elector has one vote, and one vote only.

2. The elector votes

(a) By placing the figure 1 opposite the name of the can-
didate he likes best.

He is also invited to place.
(&) The figure 2 opposite the name of his second choice,
(c) The figure 3 opposite the name of his third choice, and
so on, numbering as many candidates as he pleases in
the order of his preference.

C

26 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

3. A candidate, to ensure election, need not poll a majority, but
only a certain proportion of the votes cast. This proportion,
which is the least number of votes sufficient to render certain the
election of a candidate, is called the Quota. Thus, in a single
member constituency, a candidate who polls one more than half
the votes must be elected; the quota is, therefore, one more
than half. So in a two-member constituency, the quota is one
more than a third, for not more than two candidates can poll
so much; and in a three member constituency one more than a
fourth, and so on. Therefore, to ascertain the quota, divide the
total of the votes polled by one more than the number of seats
to be filled, and add one to the result.

4. The Returning Officer ascertains the result of the election as
follows : —

(a) He counts each ballot paper as one vote to the candi-
date marked 1 therein ; he also counts the total num-
ber of votes thereon

(&) He ascertains the quota.

(c) He declares elected the candidates who have received

the quota.

(d) He transfers in strict proportions the surplus votes of

those candidates who have received more than the
quota, and credits them to the unelected candidates
indicated by the figures 2, 3, and so on, as the next
preferences of the electors whose votes are transferred.
This operation renders all votes effective; votes are
used and not wasted.

(e) He declares, elected those candidates who, after the trans-

fer of the surplus votes, have obtained the quota.

(/) He eliminates the candidates lowest on the poll one
after another by transferring their votes in accordance
with the wishes of their supporters to the candidates
indicated as next preferences. Th*s process is continued
until the required number of candidates, having each
obtained the quota, have been declared elected, or
the number of candidates not eliminated is reduced
to the number of seats still vacant, in which event the
candidates not eliminated are declared elected.

This, then, is the system of proportional representation
known as the Single Transferable Vote. How does it
work out in practice ? I give below the results of recent
elections in three countries wHere it is in force — Bel-
gium, Finland and Tasmania. (It is also in force in
the South African Union, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark
and Sweden.)

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

27

Belgian Elections, 1908.

Seats

Seats

actually

in rropor-

Parties. "Votes.

obtained.

tion to votes.

Catholics ... ... 515,926

37

S6

Liberals and Socialists ... 633,258

43

44*

Christian Democrats ... 16,095

1

1

Finland Elections,

1909.

Seats

Seats

actually

in propor-

Parties. Votes.

obtained.

tion to votes.

Socialists 336,659

84

80,

Old Finns 198,635

48

47

Young Finns ... ... 121,006

28"

29

Swedish Nationalists ... 104,107

25

25

Agrarians ... ... 56,649

13

:3

Religious Labourers ... 23,120

2

6

Tasmanian Elections

1909.

Seats

Seats

actually

in propor-

Parties. Votes.

obtained.

tion to votes.

Labour Party ... ... 18,802

12

11.7

Non-Socialist ... ... 29,286

18

18.3

These three countries differ in every conceivable way,
yet it will be seen that in each case the seats actually
obtained by each party were practically equal to the
voting strength of that party. This amply justifies the
claims put forward by the advocates of proportional
representation. But the objection will be raised that
this elaborate system of electioneering would take much
longer to carry out than the present single member
constituency one. I do not think so. A model elec-
tion of five members was held recently in England.
The 21,672 votes recorded were all counted and trans-
ferred in six hours by a staff of 40. It must take just
as long, if not much longer, to count the vote in five
single member constituencies as at present. Take the
county of Cork. It consists of seven county divisions
returning a single member each, and one city division

* The figures for Liberals and Socialists are given together
because in several constituencies these parties presented a com-
mon List.

28 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION.

returning two members. This means eight separate
elections. What it means in time and trouble during
eight contested elections no one save the Sub- Sheriff
for Cork County could properly say. It must be pro-
digious. Under a system of proportional representa-
tion Cork County would probably be divided into three
constituencies, namely, Cork City (three members),
East Cork (three members), West Cork (three mem-
bers). The whole election could be carried through in
one day and the counting of the votes in another, so
the work which at present takes nearly three weeks
could be carried through in a few days. The position
of the illiterate voter would not be different under such
a system from what it is at present ; in both cases he
has to depend on the kind offices of the presiding officer
to fill up his paper for him (Ballot Act, Sch. I., Part I.,
rule 26). One must presume that a voter, even if fee
cannot read, has some acquaintance with the candi-
dates before he comes to give his judgment at the elec-
tion, and it is no more difficult for the illiterate to
signify which of the candidates he likes best, which
second best, and so on, than it is to decide against the
two rival policies under the present conditions. I
must emphasise the fact that the duty of the voter
and that of the returning officer should be considered
entirely apart from one another. A vote is valid if a
single figure 1 is marked against one name, and I am
sure there are very few voters who cannot tell the pre-
siding officer whom they like best. The adoption of
proportional representation in electing members to our
legislative assembly is, therefore, highly desirable. It
certainly merits the fullest consideration and discussion.
Lord Courtney's letter has indeed been received most
generously. Mr. Eedmond has himself declared that —

Lord Courtney's letter suggests proportional representation in
the creation of an Irish Legislature, Now let me say this on
that matter. With the spirit and with the object that he has
in view I entirely sympathise. What we want is that the
Irish Parliament should be representative of every element
in the country. We want every class represented. We
want every creed represented. We want represented there

the men of learning and letters, the men of commerce, the men
of the professions, the working-men, the tradesmen, the farmers,

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 29

the labourers and artisans — the Catholic, the Protestant, and the
Presbyterian. We want equal justice and toleration for

all honest opinions, and even, I would say, for all honest
idiosyncrasies. Yes, we want equality, and I say — speaking, as
I believe I can speak, for the mass of the iNationalists and Catho-
lics of Ireland — we won't have, and we won't tolerate, an ascen-
dancy of any class or creed. Therefore I say that we are willing
to discuss sympathetically, and that we will give our consideration
to any proposal for a system, of representation in our Parliament
which will carry out our idea of Toleration and Full Representa-
tion so long as it is consistent with honest democratic principle.

These are strong and wise words. It is peculiarly
necessary that the new regime in Ireland should start
with every possible element of justice to every section
of the population. A just system of representation will
eusure this. And there is this further point : the divi-
sion in Ireland between Unionists and Home Eulers is
apt to appear to English eyes as a provincial division —
North-East Ulster against the rest of Ireland. This
apparent division is, as we know, untrue. There are
Unionists in Dublin and in Cork, and there are Home
Eulers in North-East Ulster. Proportional representa-
tion will make it clear that the line of cleavage of poli-
tical opinion is not a provincial line, and so will produce
a greater sense of unity between the different geogra-
phical districts. Irish conditions are not unlike Belgian.
In Belgium before proportional representation was
introduced, the Flemish provinces were apparently
solidly 'Conservative, and opposed as such to the Wal-
loon provinces, which were apparently solidly Socialist
or Liberal. Proportional representation destroyed this
appearance of uncompromising opposition. It allowed
the Liberal minorities in Flanders and the Conservative
minorities in Liege to return their own members, and
when the representatives of Liege and Flanders met in
Brussels, each man could find among the members
from the other province a sympathiser in political
opinion. So may it be in Ireland.

VII.— IEISH BBPEE'SENTATION IN THE
IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

fj^HE question of Irish representation in the Impe-
-*- rial Parliament, or House of Commons, is in
some sense more an Imperial problem than a strictly
Irish one. It is indeed intimately related to the large
and important question of Imperial Federation — a
question which is bound to come up for solution in the
near future. Parnell, as I have already stated, kept
an open mind upon the question. The most important
thing from the Irish point of view was then, and is
still, that the Irish Parliament should have complete
control over purely Irish affairs. That secured, the
part Irish representatives were to play in the Imperial
Parliament was one for friendly settlement on the most
suitable basis for all j)arties concerned. I think it is
obvious that in this matter Mr. Redmond also stands
where Parnell stood. He is interested in a Federal
solution of the Irish question, and he will not hinder
such a solution, but neither will he consent to have the
Irish demand for self-government postponed for such a
length of time as the whole of Great Britain may re-
quire before it makes up its mind as to the best method
of centralising the Imperial Government whilst giving
to each nationality within the Empire power to manage
its own local affairs — a power which, as far as the
Colonies are concerned, is already in existence. Such
an Imperial Federation is, I think, inevitable. The
British Empire, as it at present exists, is really a volun-
tary league of States terminable upon a breath. No-
thing could prevent Australia or South Africa or Canada
from severing the Imperial connection in the morning
were they so minded. If British policy for the last
hundred years had proceeded on the centripetal instead
of the centrifugal principle, who can doubt that the
British Empire would be a much stronger political fact
to-day. But let this be also remembered, that any

IRISH REPRESENTATION IN THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT. 31

scheme of empire which ignores the force of nationalities
is predestined to ruin. A recent political philosopher
has well said : —

Nationality is a bugbear and a stumbling block to the
impatient reformer; to the rhetorical man of feeling it is an
end in itself; but to the statesman who has the skill to use it
it is possibly a way to the widest and firmest union the world
has ever known.*

So, indeed, the statesman who gives Ireland self-
government may at the same time lay the first stone
of a great Imperial Federation. Bearing these thoughts
in mind, let us proceed to consider in detail the ques-
tion of Irish representation in the Imperial Parliament.
Koughly speaking, and for the purposes of practical
discussion, there are four methods of dealing with the
difficulty. The first method, and to a certain extent
the simplest, would be to exclude the Irish members
entirely from Westminster. This is what the Home Eule
Bill of 1886 proposed to do. It was, perhaps, one of the
principal reasons which led to its defeat. The exclu-
sion of Irish members from Westminster would mean
an entire alteration in the status of Ireland, which
must be either followed by her complete release from
all contributions to Imperial expenditure or place her
in an unfair position to every other self-governing
colony. Now there is not the remotest chance of Ire-
land being absolved in perpetuity from all contribution
to the Imperial Treasury whatever remission of a tem-
porary nature may or may not be made. This method
would also mean taxation without representation; it
would shut out Ireland from the consideration of grave
Imperial questions which might be of vital interest to
her future welfare. We may, I think, without any
hesitation, dismiss this method of solving the question
as impossible, and one which no English Government
would now adopt. The second method would be to

* The Life of Alexander Hamilton, by F. S. Oliver. P. 434.
All interested in the federal question should read this fascinating
book, as also the " Letters of Pacificus," by the same author,
which appeared in the Times last autumn. They are to be pub-
lished soon in book form.

32 IRISH REPRESENTATION IN THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

retain the Irish members at Westminster in the same
number as at present, with liberty to take part in the
proceedings by voice and vote on all subjects. This
method would involve an obvious hardship and disad-
vantage to England, Scotland and Wales, inasmuch as
it would subject them to continuous Irish interference
in their internal affairs without a corresponding right
to interfere in the internal affairs of Ireland. Such an
arrangement could not last. It would be both unfair
to England and unfair to Ireland, and as it would place
Great Britain in a situation of inequality as compared
with Ireland, it would be reversing the present condi-
tion of affairs with a vengeance. The third method,
which was the method adopted by the Home Rule Bill
of 1893, would be to retain the Irish members at West-
minster in reduced numbers proportionate to the popu-
lation of Ireland and with liberty to take part only in
such proceedings as were of an Imperial character.
Mr. Gladstone outlined this proposal as follows when
introducing the Bill of 1893 :—

He declined to regard the question as at all vital to the
Bill, but announced that it proposed to retain them (the Irish
members), eighty instead of over a hundred strong, with
limited powers of voting. First of all they would be excluded
from voting upon any motion or Bill expressly confined to
Great Britain; secondly, they were not to vote for any tax
not levied in Ireland, nor for any appropriation of money
otherwise than for Imperial services — the schedule to the Bill
naming the services — nor on motions or resolutions exclusively
affecting Great Britain or things or persons therein. With
reference, however to the first restriction, it seemed to the
Government that there should be some way of raising the
question whether or not the Bill or motion ought to be ex-
tended to Ireland, and, therefore, Irish members would not
be excluded from voting for a motion " incidental to " such
Bill or motion.

This third method of dealing with Irish representation
in the House of Commons was accepted by the Irish
Party during the debates on the 1893 Bill, even though
it involved a reduction of the Irish members at West-
minster to 80. There can be no doubt, however, that
although this method is superior to either of those
already mentioned, it is by no means free from serious

IRISH REPRESENTATION IN THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT. 33

defects. It would mean that the House of Commons
would be divided into two different classes of mem-
bers, one partaking in all debates and divisions, the
other only in a limited number of debates and divisions.
The difficulties that would arise from this arrangement
might possibly be of an extremely serious nature. One
can well imagine a situation where a government with
a majority of seventy (consisting of Irish votes), in
Imperial questions, would be in a minority as far as
the domestic affairs of Great Britain are concerned.
Of course it may be urged with considerable probability
that the Irish votes would be divided and largely
neutralise each other, but there can be no guarantee of
this. Some arrangement might also be made by which
the Irish votes, whilst they could carry or upset a policy
or bill, would not put out the English Government of
the day. Still it is quite clear that this method would
provide a temporary solution of the difficulty until a
final and satisfactory arrangement was arrived at. I
do not doubt that this final arrangement will be what
may be called the fourth method of providing for Irish
representation in the Imperial Parliament. This
method involves the creation of local Parliaments in
Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales for the manage-
ment of their domestic affairs ; it involves the retention
of the House of Commons as it at present exists,
clothed with supremacy over the domestic Parliaments,
but concerning itself solely with Imperial affairs, and
finally it involves the abolition of the present House of
Lords and the substitution for it of an Imperial Senate
representing the entire Empire and elecBed by the
peoples of the Empire. The supremacy of the Imperial
Parliament would not mean that it could interfere in
the domestic legislation of the National Parliaments.
Such a power was not contemplated by the Home Eule
Bill of 1893. The supremacy of the Imperial Parlia-
ment would simply mean that if it granted a Home
Eule measure to Ireland in 1912 it could repeal it or
qualify it in 1920. But, as I have already said, this
great question of Imperial Federation does not take
political precedence of Home Eule. Ireland cannot
afford to wait until this question matures. Ireland

34 IRISH REPRESENTATION IN THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

will not wait. She will, however, agree to any reason-
able solution which leaves the way open to a Federal
solution later on. As such, the third method I have
indicated in this article — the method adopted by Mr.
Gladstone in 1893 — seems to me most likely to prove
acceptable to all parties concerned.

VIII.— THE PLUNDERING OF IRELAND.

T'HERE can be no sort of doubt that amongst the
most important provisions of the next Home
Rule Bill will be those dealing with finance. Home
Rule will be worse than useless to Ireland if it does not
leave her solvent as well as free. This being the case,
it is imperative that anyone writing on the subject of
Home Rule should enter as exhaustively as possible
into the details of Irish finance, and the basic prin-
ciples upon which a financial settlement between Ire-
land and England is to be arrived at. In this and the
following articles I will endeavour to discuss the sub-
ject from the point of view of one who is neither a
financier nor an economist, but who possesses the simple
qualification of being an ordinary man in the street.
A necessary preliminary to any consideration of the
present condition of affairs is an historical examination
of how it has arisen. I have tried to sum up this
historical examination in the one short sentence which
stands at the head of this article, namely — The plun-
dering of Ireland. This fact, that Ireland has been
plundered and overtaxed since the Union, on unim-
peachable historical evidence and on the admission of
a representative English Commission, is the first and
most important thing to be remembered in discussing
the financial relations between England and Ireland.
The history of this plundering divides itself naturally
into three historical periods, namely : — ■

1. That between the year 1782, when the Irish

Parliament secured complete legislative inde-
pendence, and the year 1800, when the Act of
Union was passed. During this period both
the Parliaments and the Exchequers of Great
Britain and Ireland were separated.

2. The period from the Act of Union to the conso-

lidation of the Exchequers of Great Britain

36 THE PLUNDERING OF IRELAND.

and Ireland in the year 1817. During this
period the Parliaments were united, but the
Exchequers and financial systems were dis-
tinct.
3. The period from 1817 to the present. During
this period there has been both one Parlia-
ment ancTone Exchequer, although the finan-
cial system of the two countries has been only
gradually, and is not yet completely, unified.

The first period, that previous to the Union, was, of
course, the most satisfactory for Ireland. Ireland was
not then bound to contribute anything to objects be-
yond her own shores. In point of fact, she did not
make any such contribution except by way of main-
taining some Irish regiments abroad, when troops were
serving outside the three kingdoms, and by way of
small grants made in some of the years after 1782 to-
wards the support and manning of the navy. The total
Irish expenditure during this time was very moderate,
so moderate, indeed, as to seem almost ridiculous in
these days of bloated Dreadnought estimates. In 1760,
for instance, the total Irish expenditure was £597,505,
exceeding by a small amount her income, which was
£552,282. In the same year the expenditure of Great
Britain was £17,993,229, her income £9,207,446. While
Ireland contributed very little towards the wars which
extended English trade, she was, until the close of the
American War, almost entirely excluded from any
foreign or colonial trade, and even then only gradually
admitted to it. In the year 1793 began the long and
expensive Napoleonic wars with France, and in 1798
the Irish rebellion. These disturbances rapidly in-
creased the Irish debt. In 1783 the total amount of
the Irish National debt was £1,917,784. At the be-
ginning of 1801 it was £28,541,157. We now come to
the second period. In 1800 the Union was carried by
" perjury and fraud." A legislative union might have
been brought about without any particular arrangement
as to financial matters, and, if it were contemplated
that after that union Great Britain and Ireland were
to be regarded as one country, this is the course that

THE PLUNDERING OF IRELAND. 37

would manifestly have been taken. But this was not
the principle adopted. Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh
clearly recognized that even after the Union of the
Legislatures, Ireland would have separate rights, and
that one of these rights was that, in the matter of taxa-
tion, she would contribute only in proportion to her
ability and resources. Lord Castlereagh made the
point clear. He said: — "As to the future, it is ex-
pected that the two countries should move forward and
unite with regard to their expenses in the measure to
their relative abilities." Were it not for the acknow-
ledgment of this principle the seventh article of the
Act of Union would have been wholly unnecessary.
By that article it is provided that Ireland should con-
tribute to the Imperial expenditure in a proportion of
2 to 15, or 1 to 7J, or, in other words, that of every
£100 contributed Ireland should contribute 12 per cent,
and Great Britain should contribute about 88 per cent.
It was repeatedly urged by Grattan and others, in the
debates which preceded the Union, that no information
had been laid before the Irish Parliament, justifying
the ability of Ireland to pay two-seventeenths of the
joint expenditure. Figures were procured by Castle-
reagh justifying this proportion, derived from a com-
parison of the value of exports and imports from Ire-
land for the three years ending March 25th, 1798, with
the corresponding values in Great Britain for the same
period. It is obvious if any valid conclusion was to be
drawn from these figures that they should have been
submitted to the most searching scrutiny. The time
and the opportunity for such scrutiny were resolutely
denied. Had it taken place it would have been found
that Castlereagh's figures were utterly untrustworthy.
They were statements not of real, but of official values,
and the official values bore to the real no fixed relation
whatever.* It is by virtue of this Article, founded on
false statistics, that the present taxation of the United
Kingdom exists. However, bad as it was, it recognised
three important provisions which have not been ob-
served or acted upon.

* Dr. Bridges, in " Two Centuries of Irish History," p. 253.

38 THE PLUNDERING OF IRELAND.

1. That Ireland and Great Britain entered into legis-
lative partnership on the clear understanding that they
were still, for purposes of taxation, to be regarded as
separate and distinct financial units.

2. That Ireland was to contribute to the Imperial
expenditure only in proportion to her resources, so far
as the same could be ascertained, and that, even after
the imposition of indiscriminate taxation, if circum-
stances permitted its adoption, she might claim special
exemptions and abatements.

3. That the Imperial expenditure to which those
respective contributions were to be made included not
only the whole civil expenditure of Ireland, but even
special grants for Irish purposes, which were to remain
in operation for twenty years.

The proportion of taxation imposed on Ireland by
this article was, as I have said, severely criticised in
the Irish Parliament. The critics were soon justified.
Ireland sank deeper and deeper into financial diffi-
culties year by year, and long before the time fixed for
a revision of the terms of the contract, her debt had
increased even beyond the proportion of two to fifteen
to that of Great Britain, and it became evident that a
continuance of the financial system carried out after
the Act of Union by the Imperial Parliament, would
speedily involve her in absolute bankruptcy. The fol-
lowing figures show how rapidly the Irish National Debt
mounted up : —

In 1801 ... ... ... £28,000,000

1806 ... ... ... 58,000,000

1811 ... ... ... 70,000,000

1817 113,000,000

In 1800 the taxation of Ireland was under £3,000,000;
in 1817 it amounted to £6,000,000. In 1816 a Bill
consolidating the debts and public revenues of the two
kingdoms was brought into the House of Commons and
rapidly passed into law. Pursuant to that Act all
revenues in Great Britain and Ireland were, from and
after the 5th January, 1817, to constitute a general
fund called the Consolidated Fund of the United King-
dom ; and that fund was to be charged with and indis-

THE PLUNDERING OF IRELAND. 39

criminately applied to — the services of the British and
Irish debts ; the Civil lists ; all other services previously
charged on the separate Consolidated Funds of the two
kingdoms ; and supply services of the United Kingdom
generally. The Irish customs system continued in
existence up to 1828. The next important landmark
in Irish financial history is the decade 1850 to 1860.
During that period about two and a quarter millions
were added to the permanent taxation of Ireland, or,
in other words, her taxation was increased by about 40
per cent. In 1853 Mr. Gladstone extended the Income
Tax to Ireland and increased the rate of the spirit duty.
The income tax, according to his proposal, was to be
extended to Ireland only for a limited number of years.
It still remains. True, the advance of £4,000,000
made to Ireland at the time of the famine was wholly
remitted when Mr. Gladstone imposed the Income Tax,
but the total amount of money Ireland has since paid
to England for this remission of £4,000,000 is up to the
present about £117,000,000, and we are still paying 4^
millions each year for the generosity that remitted
£4,000,000 fifty-three years ago. In addition to this
imposition of the Income Tax, a great revolution took
place in the whole financial policy of the United King-
dom. The general effect of this change in policy has
been to abolish nearly all duties on raw material, on
manufactures, and on articles of food, and to substitute
direct taxation upon income and property, together
with duties on an extremely limited number of imported
articles and on alcoholic drinks. The articles selected
for these duties, namely, tobacco, tea and spirits, are
those most largely used by the population of Ireland,
whilst the articles freed from duty were so freed mainly
for the benefit of the inhabitants of Great Britain. The
change was obviously beneficial to the inhabitants of a
rich manufacturing country, and detrimental to the
inhabitants of a poor agricultural country.* What other

* Ireland had been a prosperous industrial country, but during
the 18th century its industries were strangled by repressive English
legislation. The cattle trade, the woollen trade, the glass industry,
the brewing industry, these and many other trades were in succes-
sion barred from competing with English traders at home, and
finally even abroad. The linen trade, because it did not interfere
with any English interest, was encouraged and survived. Hence
the principal reason of Belfast's prosperity.

40 THE PLUNDERING OF IRELAND.

result could have been expected from the Act of Union ?
Old Sam Johnson spoke the truth when he said to an
Irish friend in 1779, " Do not make an union with us,
sir; we should unite with you only to rob you. We
should have robbed the Scotch, if they had
anything of which we could have robbed them."
Between 1852 and 1862 the taxation of Ireland was
increased 52 per cent., while that of Great Britain was
only increased 17 per cent. ; and the proportion of the
Irish to the British revenues, which in the first sixteen
years of the century was between one -thirteenth and
one-fourteenth, rose in the ten years after 1852 to one-
tenth or one-ninth. To put the matter in another
way, between 1817 and 1894 taxation in Ireland
increased 170 per cent, per head of the population;
while in England during the same period taxation
decreased 11 per cent, per head of the population. The
last important landmark in the history of Irish finance
is the Financial Eelations Commission of 1893. This
Commission was composed of the most eminent finan-
cial experts in the United Kingdom, and its report is
an indispensable guide to Irish financial problems.
Ireland was represented on it by The 0 'Conor Don,
Mr. John Bedmond, M.P. ; The Hon. Edward Blake,
M.P. ; and Mr. T. Sexton, M.P. The majority report,
which was signed by 11 out of its 13 members, stated
1 ' that whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland is about
one-eleventh that of Great Britain, the relative taxable
capacity of Ireland is very much smaller and is not
estimated by any of us as exceeding one -twentieth."
In other words, an amount ranging between
£200,000,000 and £400,000,000 has been extorted from
Ireland in overtaxation since the Union. In 1893 this
overtaxation was going on at the rate of 2J millions per
annum. It must be now nearly 3| millions per annum.
This is the verdict of impartial English experts. There
is no going behind it. It justifies the title of this
article.

It is in the highest degree relevant to the considera-
tion of the present financial relations of Ireland and
England, because it makes it perfectly clear that Ire-
land's position is not due to poverty or economic weak-

THE PLUNDERING OF IRELAND. 41

ness, but to overtaxation and misgovernment. This
being the case, we must consider any adjustment in
favour of Ireland which may be necessary in the new
Home Rule Bill, not as a matter of generosity or
charity, but as our absolute right on indisputable
grounds of justice and equity. It is only on these
grounds that we can negotiate a new treaty with Eng-
land, based, not upon spoliation and oppression, but
upon redress, restitution and freedom.

IX.— THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL
OF 1886.

BEFORE coming to close quarters with the present
financial position of Ireland and considering how
it is to be treated in a new Home Rule Bill, it is, I
think, absolutely necessary to see how finance was dealt
with in former Bills. In this article, therefore, I propose
to outline briefly the financial scheme of the Bill of
1886 and to discuss its details. No attempt was made
in this Bill to take into account the so-called " true "
revenue actually derived from Ireland, as distinguished
from the revenue collected in Ireland. It is evident that
Customs and Excise duties may be collected in Great
Britain in respect of articles which are consumed in
Ireland and vice versa. The English Treasury now
holds that such duty is to be credited not to the country
in which the duty is collected, but to the country
in which the duty-paid article is consumed.
This was not considered in the Bill of 1886.
The Customs and Excise were taken as col-
lected without regard to the domicile of the con-
sumers. Inasmuch as the export of duty-paid goods
from Ireland to Great Britain exceeded considerably in
1886 the import of such goods from Great Britain to
Ireland, the revenue credited to Ireland under this Bill
exceeded the revenue actually derived from consumers
in Ireland. The amount of such excess was in 1886
estimated by Mr. Gladstone to be £1,400,000. The
contribution of Ireland to National Debt, Army, Navy,
and Imperial civil expenditure was fixed on the prin-
ciple of taking one-fifteeDth of that expenditure as it
siood in 1886. Mr. Gladstone explained that this
ratio was chiefly based upon the relative assessment to
death duties in Great Britain and Ireland. Unlike the
method adopted at the Act of Union, the Irish contri-
bution was not to be one-fifteenth of the annual
expenditure of the United Kingdom, and therefore to

THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1886. 43

vary from year to year, but it was to be for 30 years
one-fifteenth of the expenditure classified as Imperial
as it stood in the year 1886. In addition to a contribu-
tion on this principle to Imperial expenditure, Ireland
was to pay a fixed annual sum to the Imperial
Exchequer towards the cost of the Irish Constabulary,
which was, while it subsisted, to continue to be a force
subject to the control of the Lord Lieutenant. The
Bill provided that duties of Customs and Excise should
continue to be imposed and levied by and under the
direction of the Imperial Parliament only, and gave
power to the Irish Parliament to levy other taxes for
the public service of Ireland.

Ireland was to make to the Consolidated Fund of the
United Kingdom the following annual contributions,
namely : —

(a) For Irish share of National Debt ... £1,466,000

(b) For Army and Navy Expenditure ... 1,666,000

(c) For Imperial Civil Expenditure ... 110,000

(d) For Koyal Irish Constabulary and

Dublin Police ... ... 1,000,000

Total £4,242,000

These annual contributions were not to be increased
for 30 years, but might be reduced in the event of the
reduction of the total Imperial expenditure. The Irish
share of the National Debt was to be taken at 48
millions, and Ireland was to pay annually £360,000 as
a sinking fund. The moneys collected in Ireland by
way of Customs and Excise were to be carried to a
separate account and applied in the payment of the
annual contribution and sinking fund. Any balance
of the Customs and Excise revenue was to be paid over
to the Irish Government, and the revenue belonging to
the Irish Government, on the other hand, was charged
with any part of the contributions which the Customs
and Excise might be insufficient to meet. The best
way to bring the matter clearly before the reader is to
reproduce the following balance-sheet of Irish revenue
and expenditure which was presented by Mr. Gladstone
to illustrate the working of the Bill: —

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THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1886. 45

Mr. Parnell, speaking on the Bill in the House of
Commons on April 8th, 1886, made the following very
pertinent criticisms. He said: —

" The question of the Customs has been touched upon.
In giving up the Customs we should practically give to you
the whole control of six-eighths or three-fourths of the
Revenues of Ireland. It would be absolutely as much within
your power as it is now, both as regards the original assess-
ment of the taxes and the receiving of the money. Tho'right
hon. gentleman has explained to us that, instead of our
insisting on separate Custom Houses, England, by collecting
the duties on whiskey and tobacco in her own Custom Houses,
gives £1,400,000 a year. This, of course, is a very serious
consideration, and it may be fairly balanced against the
surrender of the control of the Customs and Excise. But,
at the same time, if the right hon. gentleman the Prime
Minister is to take credit for giving us that £1,400,000 as a
consequence of the surrender of the Custom Houses and the
collection of the Revenues by the Imperial authority, I do
not think he is entitled to claim credit for it a second time,
and to make us pay, out of the £1,400,000, £1,000,000 for
the Irish Constabulary, over whom we are not to have any
sort of control whatever, at all events for the present. Then
there is the great question of the contribution to the Im-
perial expenditure. I cannot admit — and I say it with great
deference — either the liberality or the justice of the standard
of comparison which the right hon. gentleman has taken.
It appears to be the amount of property which comes under
assessment regarding the payment of legacy and succession
duties. That is the most unfavourable standard for us that
the right hon. gentleman could have chosen. Of course, I
understand that he is anxious to make the best bargain he
can for England, and to secure as large a contribution for
the Imperial Treasury as possible ; but he should also remem-
ber that Ireland is a very poor country, and that with such
a small balance as he showed on the Budget of £400,000 a
year, it will be impossible for Ireland to have any credit for
floating loans. Irish landlords now can borrow money at a
low rate of interest for the improvement of their estates.
Irish tenants can borrow money for improving their farms.
Local bodies can borrow money for sanitary purposes within
their jurisdiction. All these are very important matters.
But we shall have to surrender all of them under the scheme
of the right hon. gentleman, and we shall be left with a
Budget which only exceeds the annual balance by about
£400,000 a year, and a Budget arrived at on an estimate

46 THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1886.

which necessitates that the consumption of spirits, not only
in Ireland, but also in England, should continue at its pre-
sent high rate, and, of course, that the duty should be kept
as it is now. . . . When you are proposing a great
settlement, a settlement which admittedly can only succeed
if cheerfully accepted by public opinion in Ireland, and all
its important provisions are recognised as just and equit-
able, is it worth while for a rich country like England on the
question of £1,000,000 one way or the other to drive too
hard a bargain? ... I am convinced that it is clear that
one- twentieth is a far better standard of the relative share
of the two countries than that most unfortunate standard of
one-fifteenth which the right hon. gentleman has adopted.7'

Parnell's criticisms were perfectly justified. The
Financial Kelations Commission of 1893 actually
adopted the standard of one -twentieth as the maxi-
mum proportion of Ireland's contribution to Imperial
expenditure. It is quite clear now that the financial
scheme of the 1886 Bill could only have resulted in a
bankrupt Ireland. Parnell with his great foresight saw
this, and if the Bill had reached Committee we may be
sure that he would have done his best to amend it.
The charge for Constabulary was, and is, an Imperial
charge, and should be paid for, in part at least, out of
the Imperial Exchequer. The charge for collection of
revenue, amounting then to £834,000, should be an Im-
perial charge. Whoever heard of a man who pays rent
paying the landlord's agent commission for collecting
it? Yet this is fundamentally what Mr. Gladstone pro-
posed. But the really fatal defect in the scheme was
the contribution of one-fifteenth to the Imperial expen-
diture. Ireland could not have paid such a contribu-
tion, it was not an equitable contribution, and she
should not have been asked to do so. One thing is
quite certain, she will never be asked to do so again,
or being asked, she will never consent.

X.— THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF

1893.

mHE Bill of 1893 differed entirely in its financial
-*- provisions from the Bill of 1886. When
brought into the House of Commons it contained the
following provisions as to finance. The Irish contribu-
tion to Imperial expenditure was to be the amount of
the Customs duties derived from Irish consumers, then
estimated to be about £2,400,000, while the rest of the
revenue of Ireland, less the amount of excise upon Irish
trade articles consumed in Great Britain, was to be
treated as Irish revenue. After 15 years from the
passing of the Act these financial arrangements might
be revised in pursuance of an address to the Sovereign
from the House of Commons or the Irish Legislative
Assembly. The Bill provided that there should be a
separate Irish Exchequer and Consolidated Fund, and
that the duties of Customs and Excise and the postage
duties should be imposed by the Imperial Parliament,
but that the Irish Legislature might impose any other
taxes in order to provide for the public service of Ire-
land. The Customs duties were also to be regulated,
collected, managed, and paid, as before, into the
Exchequer of the United Kingdom. The Excise duties
derived from taxed articles manufactured in Ireland
but consumed in Great Britain were to be treated as
non-Irish revenue, and were either to be paid in Great-
Britain or to an officer of the Government of the United
Kingdom. With these exceptions all the public
revenues of Ireland were to be paid into the Irish
Exchequer and form part of the Irish revenue. The
Bill provided that the Royal Irish Constabulary and
the Dublin Police should, while these forces continued,

48 THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1893.

be under the control of the Lord Lieutenant, but that
they should, when and as local police forces under local
authorities were established, be gradually reduced, and
ultimately cease to exist. Two-thirds of the annual
amount expended out of the Exchequer to the United
Kingdom on the constabulary and Dublin police wa3 to
be repaid to that Exchequer by the Irish Exchequer.

Mr. Gladstone, in his speech of the 13th February,
1893, explained that the surplus or working balance of
£500,000 with which, according to his estimate, the
new Irish Government would start, arose from the fact
that the Imperial Government would, under these pro-
visions, bear to that extent the cost of the Constabu-
lary. He stated at the same time that, in view of the
proposed gradual reduction of that force, this would be
a " vanishing " charge upon the Imperial revenue.
The whole financial scheme of the Bill as introduced
was, however, upset by the discovery of the fact that
the amount of duty-paid spirits exported from Ireland
to Great Britain had been, by error, considerably
understated in the Inland Revenue returns, and that
the true revenue of Ireland had, therefore, pro tanto
been overstated. The difference amounted to about
£356,000. The Government then decided to remodel
and simplify the financial clauses of the Bill. The
principal features of the scheme, as re-modelled and
finally embodied in the Bill in Committee, were as
follows : —

1. That Ireland's contribution to Imperial expenditure
should be a quota of her true revenue based on the receipts
actually derived from the taxes and Crown lands in Ireland.

2. That this quota should consist of one-third of such
revenue.

3. That Ireland should be credited with the other two-
thirds, and likewise with her miscellaneous receipts, and
with the surplus (if any) arising from her postal services.

4. That out of the revenue with which she would thus fee
credited, and taxes other than existing taxes which the
Irish Legislature had power to impose, Ireland should pro-
vide two-thirds of the cost of the existing Constabulary and

THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1893. 49

Dublin Police forces, which under the Bill remained pro
tempore Imperial forces, pay all Jier Civil Government
charges, and meet the deficit (if any) on her postal services.

5. That until the transfer hereafter mentioned, the
changes in the rates of Inland Revenue duties and Postal
Revenue in Ireland, as well as of the Customs Revenue,
should continue to rest with the Imperial Parliament, and
that the collection should remain in the hands of the Im-
perial Government.

6. That if any special war tax should be imposed, the
whole of the proceeds collected in or contributed by Ireland
should go to the Imperial Exchequer.

7. That these financial arrangements should be for six
years, at the end of which period (1) they should be revised
as regarded the Irish contribution to Imperial charges; (2$
the collection of the whole of the Inland Revenue should be
transferred to the Irish Government; and (3) the Irish
Legislature should impose the stamp duties, income tax, and
excise licenses.

8. That for the purpose of determining the true annual
revenue of Ireland, as distinguished from revenue collected
there, an adjustment should be made by a Joint Committee
of the Treasury and the Irish Government in the case of
Customs and Excise, so as to provide that Ireland should be
credited with the Customs and Excise duties, including any
collected in Great Britain upon articles consumed in Ireland,
but not with the duties, although collected in Ireland, upon
articles consumed in Great Britain.

The manner in which this scheme would have
operated is shown by the following specimen balance-
sheet prepared by the Treasury at the time : —

50

THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1893.

Specimen Irish Balance Sheet, according to actual

Ikish Revenue, 1892-3.

Total

Amount

Estimated

1 payable to

Revenue

1 Irish

£

of Ireland.

1 Exchequer.

£

£

1

Customs. — Revenue collected in
Ireland
Add estimated allowance for
duties paid in Great Britain
on articles consumed in Ire-
land ....

2,136,000
266,000

Excise. —

2,402,000

1,601,000

2.

(1.) Spirits. — Revenue collected

in Ireland .

4,112,000

Deduct amount of duties

ascertained to be paid in

Ireland on spirits con-

sumed in Great Britain

1,872,000

2,240,900

—

(2.) Beer. — Revenue collected in

Ireland

811,000

Deduct estimated allow-

ance for duties paid in

Ireland on beer con-

sumed in Great Britain

187,000

624,000

(3.) Licence Duties collected in

Ireland
Total Excise .
Stamp Duties collected in Ireland.

•

194,000

—

3,058,000

2,039,000

3.

707,000

471,000

4.

Income Tax collected in Ireland .

.

552,000

368,000

5.

' 'Crown Lands. — Amount estimated to be due

to Ireland in respect of .
Total

; :

65,000

43,000

6,784,000

4,522,000

Miscellaneous Irish Receipts .
Totals

• •

138,000

138,000

6,922,000

4,660,000

THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1893. 51

Figures, of Revenue and "Expenditure in 1892-3.

Irish Expenditure, 1892-3.

1. Civil Government Charges (exclusive of Constabulary, &c.

charges and salary of Lord Lieutenant ; but inclusive of
local charges met out of Local Taxation Revenue) .

2. Constabulary, &c. Charges (1,459,000£.), two-thirds of .
Estimated Deficit on Postal Accounts

3,123,000

973,000

52,000

4,148,000

Surplus .

512,000
4,660,000

52 THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1893.

These are very briefly the facts concerning the finan-
cial provisions of the 1893 Bill. It is, I think, obvious
that just as it would be impossible now to embody in a
new Home Rule Bill the financial provisions of the Bill
of 1886, so also it would be equally impossible to em-
body in such a Bill the financial provisions of the Bill
of 1893. That the present Government are aware of
this is made evident by the fact that they have
appointed a special Financial Commission to advise the
Cabinet as to the financial provisions of the new Bill.
Let us consider how the provisions of the Bill of 1893
would operate at present and we shall see how absurd
it would be to try and revive them. The surplus to
Ireland's credit in 1893 was, we have seen, £512,000.

The Irish Revenue for 1910 is difficult to arrive at
accurately on account of the disturbance created by
the rejection of the Budget, but we shall estimate it
at its highest figure if we place it at about
£11,000,000.* Then apply the principles of the 1893
Bill and we get the following startling results: —

Irish Revenue ... ... ... £11,000,000

Payment to Imperial Treasury on basis of

1893 Bill ... 3.666.666

Balance available for Irish expenditure ... £7,333,334
Irish expenditure (1910) ... ... £10,712,000

Deficit ... ... ... £3,378,666

These figures are alarming enough to an Irishman,
but I commend them particularly to the attention of
the English taxpayer. For him they are a peculiarly
useful study, and in concluding this article I offer him
this sum in proportion as a suitable and refreshing
mental exercise. If a financial scheme that eighteen
years ago would have left Ireland with a surplus of
£512,000 now leaves her with a deficit of £3,378,666,

*This figure is not based on Treasury returns, but on
other data which I hope to discuss in a succeeding article.

THE FINANCIAL SCHEME IN THE BILL OF 1893. 53

what deficit will Ireland show under the same scheme
(or any conceivable financial scheme) after twenty
years more of financial bondage and English govern-
ment? Having completed this exercise in arithmetic,
he might, with further profit to himself, proceed to
read the old story about the killing of the goose that
laid the golden eggs.

XL— IRELAND'S PRESENT BALANCE-SHEET.

TN order to arrive at any just conclusion as to what
■*• should be the financial provisions of a new Home
Rule Bill it is, first of all, necessary to consider the
present revenue and expenditure of Ireland: in other
words, to construct an Irish balance-sheet. This is a
matter of some difficulty. Ireland is in the position of
a business man whose books are kept (in a system he
objects to) by a firm of accountants appointed by a
rival trader, and who is only presented once a year with
a summary of his income and expenditure. The whole
financial system under which Ireland's taxation is
administered is, as we have already pointed out, a
direct violation of the terms of the Act of Union. This
being so the Treasury White Papers are naturally
inaccurate and misleading. Professor Kettle has
recently shown that on the Revenue side they
abound in mere guesses. The " true revenue " con-
tributed by Ireland under such large heads as tobacco,
beer, tea and sugar was actually calculated for 1909-
1910 on the basis of auguries or conjectures made for
1903-1904. On the expenditure side they contain
many items which are really Imperial charges and
which would cease to exist under Home Rule. It is,
therefore, almost impossible to form any very accurate
idea of how Ireland stands financially at the present
moment. One thing seems to me certain — namely,
that she is absolutely solvent and in a far better posi-
tion than anyone gives her credit for. A good example
of Treasury accounts is given in the recent White
Papers 233 and 234 dealing with Imperial Revenue and
Expenditure in Great Britain and Ireland. According
to these papers the Irish Expenditure exceeded the
Irish Revenue in the year ending 31st March, 1910, by
£2,357,500. The exact figures are:—

Ireland's present balance-sheet. 55

Irish Expenditure ... ... £10,712,500

Estimated True Eevenue ... 8,355,000

Deficit ... ... £2,357,500

The first thing to be remembered about these
extraordinary documents is that they deal with an ex-
traordinary year — the year that Lloyd-George's Budget
was thrown out and the whole financial system of
Great Britain disorganised. The accounts of the
United Kingdom for the same year show a deficit of
£26,248,155, due to this cause. Let us take the
matter a step further and compare the Irish Eevenue
for 1909-1910 with that of the preceding year, which
was a normal one : —

Collected. Collected.

1908-1909. 1909-1910.
£ £

Customs ... ... 2,611,000 2,742,000

Excise ... ... 5,420,000 4,487,000

Estate Duty and Stamps ... 1,001,000 977,000

Income Tax ... ... 1,019,000 388,000

Post Office ... ... 1,088,000 1,110,000

Crown Lands ... ... 146,500 142,000

Total ... ...£11,285,500 £9,846,000

True Revenue ... £9,250,000 £8,355,000

Or if the average annual amount of revenue collected
in Ireland for the seven years 1902-8 is taken, the
result is nearly the same —

Average Revenue collected in Ireland ... £11,473,640
Average estimated true revenue ... £9,721,300

These figures show that the White Papers for 1909-
1910 underestimated the revenue collected in Ireland
in a normal year by £1,627,640 and the estimated true
revenue by £1,366,000. But the figures for 1909-1910
do not include the increased taxation under the
Budget, because it had not then been collected. A

56 IRELAND'S PRESENT BALANCE-SHEET.

great deal of discussion has taken place as to what this
taxation amounts to. The actual annual increase, tak-
ing the average figures of taxable revenue for the two
years subsequent to the passing of the Budget, and the
two years after the passing of the Budget, now available,
comes to £538,000. Say in round numbers £600,000!
Take this figure and. add it to the average annual true
revenue for the seven years 1902-1908, £9,721,300, and
we get £10,321,300, which is approximately correct,
and £1,966,300 more than the Treasury returns show.

But this by no means disposes of the fundamental
inaccuracies in these accounts. Mr. R. A. Atkins, of
Cork, has recently written two letters to the Press
which completely demolished the theories of Mr.
Samuels, K.C., and are invaluable reading to any
student of Irish financial affairs at the present juncture.
I do not agree with all his figures, but they are very
helpful, and I have used most of them in this article.
Mr. Atkins points out that the " true revenue " of
Ireland is considerably under-estimated. The esti-
mated " true revenue is, we have seen, on the seven
years' average, 1902-1908, £1,752,340 lees than the
actual revenue collected in Ireland. Sir Edward
Hamilton (Assistant Secretary to the Treasury), in his
evidence to the Financial Relations Commission, pointed
out how the so-called. " true " revenue was arrived at.
He said " that it is evident that Customs and Excise
duties may be collected in Great Britain in respect of
articles which are consumed in Ireland, and vice versa,
and that in that case the revenue derived from the duty
is properly to be credited, not to the country in which
the duty is collected, but to the country in which the
duty-paid article is consumed. If, for Instance, a
pound of tea is landed and pays duty in London, and is
subsequently sold and consumed in Ireland, the
revenue in respect of that tea is collected in London,
but really paid in the retail price of the tea in Ireland.
The reverse would be true of spirits manufactured and
taxed in Ireland, but sold and consumed in England."
Now, up to 1904, when the Department began to pub-
lish their invaluable reports on Irish exports and
imports, there was no record of cross-Channel trade

Ireland's present balance-sheet. 57

except as regards spirits. Any estimate made by the
Treasury must, therefore, only be an approximation of
the truth, and not a very accurate one, as we shall see.
The average for the seven years 1902-1908, according
to the Treasury returns, shows a difference of
£1,752,300 between the revenue collected in Ireland
and the true revenue, which means that after making
allowance for duties paid in the United Kingdom on
articles consumed in Ireland, the additional sum of
£1,752,300 has been deducted from the revenue col-
lected in Ireland, in respect of duties paid in Ireland
on articles consumed in the United Kingdom. I sub-
mit that this is obviously incredible and ridiculous.
Let us contrast this figure with the Department's
Report for 1909 on Imports and Exports. This Report
shows that the undermentioned articles were imported
into Ireland, on which all or portion of the duty was
paid in Great Britain : —

£
Tea, 34,334,832 lbs., about 95 per cent.

paid duty in Great Britain ... 679,544

Sugar, 2,857,832 cwts, about 30 per cent.

paid duty in Great Britain ... 78,588

Manufactured tobacco, cigars, etc.,

2,780,944 lbs., all paid duty in Great

Britain ... ... ... 741,598

Cocoa, chocolate, etc., 4,694,696 lbs., all

paid duty in Great Britain ... 29,560

Coffee and chicory, 1,330,560 lbs., all paid

duty in Great Britain ... ... 8,317

Beer and porter, 156,397 barrels, all paid

duty in Great Britain ... ... 60,604

Confectionery, 150,993 cwts. ... ... 13,840

Total ... ... ... £1,612,051

Also 1,305,102 gallons of wine and 912,214 gallons of
spirits on which it is impossible to estimate where duty
was paid.

I am quite certain the Treasury never consider these
figures in preparing their returns of true revenue. They

e

58 Ireland's present balance-sheet.

are in the same position as Mr. Gladstone, who stated,
when introducing the 1893 Bill, that the amount of
duties paid in Great Britain on articles consumed in
Ireland was only £266,000 — an underestimate of at
least % million pounds in favour of England, as the
Irish population was then 300,000 more than it is now,
and they certainly did not consume less tea, tobacco,
etc., than in 1909, when the duty so paid was, we
have seen, £1,612,051. Mr. Atkins also points out in
his letter that no allowance is made to Ireland for the
enormous amount of income tax deducted from Irish
shareholders by English companies when paying divi-
dends or interest, and which must amount to a con-
siderable sum, as Irish investors have, unfortunately,
much more money invested in Great Britain than
British investors have in Ireland. Bearing all these
facts in mind, let us put together our balance-sheet.

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60 Ireland's present balance- sheet.

The above figures are compiled as follows: — The
revenue is that for 1908-9, a normal year, adding
£1,000,000, the estimated increase in Irish taxation
owing to the Budget. The expenditure is the actual
expenditure for 1909-1910. As regards the duties paid
in Ireland on spirits, etc., consumed in Great Britain
the same percentage is taken as ascertained by Mr.
Gladstone from Excise permits in 1893. The amount
of Irish whiskey exported may have increased since
then, but the increase cannot be very great. The item
" Amounts voted by Parliament " on the expenditure
side includes £2,321,799 for old-age pensions. In the
balance-sheet prepared by Mr. Atkins, on which mine
is based, he estimates the increased taxation under the
Budget at £1,500,00. I have estimated it at £600,000.
He estimates income tax deducted from Irish investors
in Great Britain at £100,000. I estimate it at £200,000,
and think this is short of the actual figure.

In conclusion I should like to point out that in this
balance-sheet no allowance has been made for the pre-
sent wasteful administration of Ireland or the portion of
our expenditure which is really Imperial in its char-
acter. These subjects I shall deal with later on.

XII.— ENGLISH ADMINISTKATION IN IEELAND.

rilHE story is told of the late Judge Adams that he
-*■ was walking down to the Four Courts during
the discussion of the Home Kule Bill in 1893 with one
of the big judicial dignitaries. " I suppose," said the
judge, " the first thing this Irish Parliament will
do is to reduce my salary to £2,000." " Indeed they
won't," replied Adams, " they'll reduce it to £300, and
you will have to do a good canvass every January to
prevent them reducing it to £200." Of course, no
Irish Parliament would desire to deal in this summary
fashion with Irish officialdom, even if it were given
immediate power to do so, but the story is a
pointed criticism of English administration in
Ireland. The shameless extravagance and wasteful
expenditure which characterise Dublin Castle govern-
ment may be illustrated in a concise fashion by the
following figures. In 1841 the population of Ireland
was 8,175,124, and its civil government charges were
about £1,400,000. In 1910 the population of Ireland
was about 4,000,000, the civil government charges were
£9,077,500. The following comparison with Scotland,
a country whose population is larger than Ireland's by
more than half a million, is also eloquent: —

Scotland. Ireland.

Number of Government offi-
cials having more than
£160 a year ... ... 944 4,397

Amount of their salaries ... £319,237 £1,441,131

The figures are taken from the Inland Eevenue Keport
for 1909-1910. Is it any wonder that the cost of Irish
Administration offers a fruitful subject for inves-
tigation by an Irish Parliament ? These are the gross
figures. Let us consider the matter in detail. The
number of boards, offices and departments connected

62 ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN IRELAND.

with the administration of Ireland is fifty- seven. Sir
David Harrel, for many years Under Secretary at
Dublin Castle, has stated publicly, and the statement
cannot be called a partisan one, that " These depart-
ments might, with economy and advantage, be dimi-
nished in numbers and placed under fewer heads."*
Ireland, which is one of the most crimeless countries in
Europe, has a police force costing £1,500,000. Scotland
has a police force which costs £600,000. The cost of
the police in "Ireland is 6s. 8d. per head, in England
2s. 4d., and in Scotland 2s. 2Jd.

The report of Lord Farrer, Lord Welby and Mr.
Currie, in the proceedings of the Financial Eelations
Commission, contains one remarkable passage bearing
on the cost of Irish administration. Here it is : —

The expenditure of Belgium may be compared not unfairly
with that of Ireland. In Belgium, as in Ireland, govern-
ment is centralised, and the functions of administration are
extended. The imports and exports of Belgium, excluding
transit trade, are valued at £117,000,000 in 1893 ; those of
Ireland are guessed at £45,000,000. In short, if Ireland is
said to be poor, Belgium is beyond question prosperous,
wealthy and progressive, yet the charge of Civil Government
in Ireland for 1892-93 was £4,544,000, while the charge for
like purposes in Belgium in 1893 was £2,600,000. We, there-
fore, state the case much against Belgium if we reckon in
broad figures her expenditure to that of Ireland as 3 to 4$.
That is, Civil Administration in Belgium (population
6,300,000 in 1893) cost less than 10s. a head, in Ireland
19s. 7d., or double. Looking to special items, we find that
the salaries provided in the Belgian estimates for the fifteen
judges of the two courts of justice are barely £6,000 per
annum, while Ireland pays her Lord Chancellor £8,000.

The imports and exports of Ireland now amount to
£125,000,000 (they were probably more than
£45,000,000 in 1893), but the Irish civil government
charges have gone up to £9,000,000, or double what
they were in 1893. True, we may console ourselves
with the fact that the Lord Chancellor's salary has

* Quoted in " Dublin Castle and the Irish People," by
R. Barry O'Brien, p. 357. The best book on Irish adminis-
tration and its history.

ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN IRELAND. 63

been reduced to an equality with that of the entire
Belgian judiciary, namely, £6,000 !

The most scandalous extravagance in Irish adminis-
tration is to be found under the head of judicature.
The Lord Chancellor has, as we have seen, £6,000 per
annum, £1,000 more than the Prime Minister
of England. The Lord Chief Justice and the Attorney-
General have £5,000 each, the same as the Prime
Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Four other
judges have £4,000 per annum, and the ten remaining
have £3,500 each. The President of the Swiss Ke-
public has £720 a year, and no judge in Belgium has
more than £400 a year. The Private Secretary of the
Irish Lord Chancellor gets £500 per annum. The
total law charges for Ireland are £421,384. The total
law charges for Scotland are £228,383, yet I have never
heard that it is harder to get justice in Scotland than
in Ireland. The Lord Lieutenant gets £20,000 a year.
He used to get £30,000. The President of the United
States gets £20,000 a year. He used to get £10,000.
The household of the Lord Lieutenant costs £4,672,
and there are miscellaneous charges which amount to
£10,402,1 so the total cost for the upkeep of the Lord
Lieutenancy is £35,074. One naturally asks if this
figure-head could not be done without, or at least given
a reasonable salary. Is it conceivable that an Irish
Executive would pay such salaries ? It is not a ques-
tion of what these distinguished men deserve, but what
the country can afford to pay. Irish administration is
founded on demoralisation. The money spent on the
legal establishment is part of the system of English
government in Ireland. It has purchased the intellect
and sapped the integrity of a great profession. A
national government could have no use for such a
system. " In the estimates for the year 1906," says
Lord Dunraven, " the sum placed upon 26 Irish votes
amounts to about 4| millions, of which about 3 millions
are for salaries and pensions. Head for head, the Irish
Government costs more than that of any civilised com-
munity in the world." Against this system Ireland has

t Estimates 1906-1907.

64 ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN IRELAND.

no appeal, no remedy, no alternative. Let us return to
the salaries. The Chief Secretary gets £4,425, nearly
as much as the Prime Minister. The Secretary for
Scotland gets £2,000, so does the Irish Under Secre-
tary. The Irish Assistant Under Secretary gets £1,200.
The total expenses of the Chief Secretary's Depart-
ment for the year 1906-1907 were £41,471. The
Inspector-General of the Constabulary receives £1,800
a year. The Deputy Inspector-General gets £1,200.
The Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan
Police receives £900 a year. The Head of the Stock-
holm Police receives £500 a year.

The total vote for prisons in Ireland for the year
1909-1910 amounted to £114,556, for Scotland it
amounted to £97,390. Yet there is much less crime in
Ireland. Turn from these figures to those concerning
education. Professor Kettle, speaking in the House
of Commons on 26th March, 1908, dealt with the sub-
ject. He showed that the amount spent per head of
population for primary education in the three kingdoms
was as follows : —

s. d.

England 7 10J

Scotland ... ... ... ... 8 8

Ireland ... ... ... ... 6 5

Further, for every £1 spent by the State in England on
education, 17s. went to education and 3s. to office
expenses. In the case of Scotland, 16s. 2d. went to
education and 3s. lOd. to office expenses. For every
£1 spent in Ireland, only 13s. 6d. went to education
and 6s. 6d. was spent in office expenses. The total
vote for Irish primary education in the year 1909-10
was £1,621,921 ; in Scotland for the same year the vote
for primary education was £2,147,541. But the story
of English mal-administration in Ireland does not end
with the appalling figures I have cited. There is the
most extraordinary confusion in the powers of all these
boards and authorities. The Chief Secretary is supposed
to preside over most of them like a sort of Pooh-Bah — a
Lord High Everything Else. The Lord Lieutenant

ENGLISH ADMINISTRATION IN IRELAND. 65

has powers of appointment in certain departments; in
others he shares these powers with the Crown ; in others
with subordinate officers. Then he has power over the
judiciary, but not of appointment. All the lowest
official positions are obtained by severe competitive
examination, the higher positions are the emoluments
of political jobbery and corruption, and the preserves of
a small privileged caste. The Treasury and other Eng-
lish Boards have control over several of the Irish
Boards without reference to Lord Lieutenant or Chief
Secretary. Some boards are free from all control, and
defy both the executive and the Irish people. The
Intermediate Board is a case in point. Education is un-
co-ordinated, and the teachers, both primary and
secondary, are treated scandalously. The Treasury,
within limits, is the real master of Ireland. Whether
from ignorance or prejudice, it withholds money when
it is wanted and pays it out for every fresh form of
extravagance. This is the story of English adminis-
tration in Ireland. It explains the financial condition
of Ireland. It is the final and clinching argument for
Home Eule.

XIII.— THE PBESENT FINANCIAL PROBLEM.

IN the preceding articles I have tried to show that
* Ireland since the Union has been systematically
and stupendously overtaxed, that the financial schemes
embodied in the Home Rule Bill of 1886 and 1893 are
now obsolete and impossible, that Ireland is not yet
insolvent although rapidly becoming so, and that the
English administration of Ireland is extravagant, cor-
rupt, and inefficient. There remains to be considered
the most vital question of all, namely, on what basis
can a financial settlement be now arrived at between
England and Ireland ? The question is a difficult one.
It would be presumptuous for me to suggest definitely
a final solution. I can only summarise and discuss
the conclusions of those more competent to do so. In
the first place consider the two peoples. In Great
Britain you have a rich commercial people living in the
cities, the average wealth of whom is £50 per annum.
In Ireland you have a poor agricultural people whose
average wealth is only £15 per annum. " We have
only," says Mr. Birrell, " got to look at the Revenue
return from Ireland to see that she is a poor country.
In 1906-7 the revenues collected in Ireland amounted
to £11,499,000. Well, of that amount £8,000,000 was
derived from Customs and Excise — eight millions of
money out of eleven millions, because the people have
to eat and drink excisable customs-bearing articles.
We all know that people who drink large quantities of
tea and smoke many ounces of tobacco do so because
of the very inadequacy of their sustenance. We find
that the income tax in England produces £28,000,000 ;
in Ireland it produces £999,000; therefore you find a
country whose taxation is practically almost wholly
derived from indirect taxation, and therefore we have
to deal with a poor country."*

* House of Commons, May 2nd, 1908.

THE PRESENT FINANCIAL PROBLEM. 67

Mr. Eedmond has put the matter in an equally
graphic way. Speaking in the House of Commons on
May 13th, 1902, he said:—

There are some tables given by the Government Depart-
ment known as the Congested Districts Board as an ap-
pendix to one of their reports and they give twelve examples
of the income and expenditure of twelve families in the
poorer parts, scattered practically over the whole of Ireland.
I will take these at random. Here is one example of the
receipts and expenditure of a family in ordinary circum-
stances— judged by the Irish standpoint, the ordinary cir-
cumstances being profits from agriculture and home indus-
tries. The total receipts are £23 8s. 7d. The total expen-
diture included these items : meal, £7 14s., because that is
tneir bread, as my hon. friend who interrupted me rightly
pointed out a moment ago. These people cannot afford the
luxuries of ordinary bread. They live very largely upon
yellow Indian meal, the kind of meal you feed your dogs
on in this country. Now, in the family where the budget
is £23, meal costs £7 14s.; tea, £o 17s.; sugar, £1 19s.;
tobacco, £3 9s. 4d. ; total, £18 19s. 4d. out of a total income
©f £23. The Secretary of the Treasury was right when he
stated that in considering this tax it is not fair to consider
it alone. It is right we should take a survey of the other
taxes, and I say it enormously strengthens my case. There
are these poor creatures living in straitened circum-
stances such as that ; and you, from motives and with objects
I will not delay now to examine, enter upon a great
Imperial policy and a great war to extend the dominions of
the Crown, and what is the first thing you do? You come
to a poor wretched family whose whole income is £23, and
you put a war tax first upon tea, then upon tobacco, then
upon sugar, and now you come down and put a war tax
upon bread and the poor man's meal*.

These facte and figures illustrate clearly the enor-
mous importance of the taxation derived from Customs
and Excise. The revenue from Customs and Excise
is more than sixty-one per cent, of the total
revenue of Ireland. Control of the Customs and Excise
means to a large extent control oi Ireland's economic
destiny. Is an Irish Parliament to be deprived of this
control? This is one of the most serious questions to
be decided by the financial provisions of the new Bill.
Several writers have assumed that the control of the
Customs and Excise is to remain in the hands of the

* The over-taxation of the Poor is the real Irish financial
grievance.

68 THE PRESENT FINANCIAL PROBLEM.

Imperial Parliament. Have they considered what
would happen to Ireland if we were saddled with a
scientific English protective tariff, framed in the
interests of England and English manufacturers ? The
contingency is by no means improbable, certainly nob
impossible of fulfilment. The same tariff could not
suit both countries, and each of the protective tariffs
outlined up to the present would mean Ireland's eco-
nomic ruin. The possibility of such a tariff was not
contemplated in Parnell's time, and the necessity for
economic independence was not so imperative then.
It is different now. I would therefore strongly urge
that Ireland be given control of her own Customs and
Excise. Eeservations might be made, and doubtless
would be made, which would prevent an Irish Parlia-
ment from raising a tariff barrier against England.
Such reservations would be only equitable. The thing
to be guarded against is not the Customs and Excise
duties as they stand, but probable alterations thereof
by England in the direction of Protection. Again, if
Customs and Excise duties are not collected by the
Irish Exchequer there will be endless difficulties in
ascertaining the true revenue of Ireland to the satis-
faction of both countries. Mr. Frank MacDermot has
put the whole matter very clearly. He writes*: —

Nothing can really be learnt as to Ireland's economic
status until she has tried her hand at raising her own
revenue. Nor until then can an Irish Parliament make any
real beginning with its work. It is not as in Parnell's day.
There are no burning questions to be settled, no chains to
be broken, no tyranny to be overthrown. To budget for
ourselves, that is now the kernel of Home Rule, or very near
it. The ideals of public service and public duty, which it
is our ambition to disseminate through a country where love
of the State has been an unknown emotion, and love of the
law has been synonymous with arrogance and rapacity, will
be atrophied at the start if we are compelled to look on in
heart-breaking impotence while economic advancement is
being stinted by financial measures whose authors have nob
the power, even if they had the will, to ascertain and
satisfy our needs*.

* The Nation, April loth, 1911.

THE PRESENT FINANCIAL PROBLEM. 69

The question of what is Ireland's revenue is also of
enormous importance. Mr. Gladstone in 1886, for con-
venience, and also for equitable reasons, treated the
revenue collected in Ireland as Ireland's true revenue.
The Treasury now deducts close on two millions from
Irish revenue on the grounds that this sum is actually
paid, not in Ireland, but by the consumers in England.
The sum thus deducted is apparently arrived at on
absolutely obsolete figures and by methods which Ire-
land has no opportunity of examining. I submit that
the whole arrangement by which ' ' True ' ' revenue is at
present arrived at is inequitable and misleading. On the
other hand it is equally obvious that some adjustment
must be made or Irish trade would be injured. Take the
whiskey industry, for instance. If Ireland got the
revenue collected in Ireland without adjustment, one of
two things would happen. English purchasers of Irish
whiskey would take the whiskey in bond to England
and pay the duty there, so that Ireland would lose the
revenue, or else, and this is more probable, they would
not buy Irish whiskey at all because they would be con-
tributing to Irish revenue alone on every bottle of Irish
whiskey they sold, and our Scotch rivals would waste
no time in pointing this out. The same thing would
happen as regards porter. Therefore if Ireland got the
Excise revenue as collected there would be soon no
revenue to collect. I pass on to another aspect of
the financial problem — namely, can Ireland contribute
anything to the Imperial Exchequer? She cannot at
present. The present administration of Ireland will
not be reformed in a day, economies will not be pos-
sible for many years, because monopoly and privilege
cannot be limited nor extravagance curtailed by Act of
Parliament. Careful pruning will do much and intel-
ligent examination disclose many openings for re-
trenchment, but it will take an Irish Parliament
many years to conserve and strengthen the Irish
Exchequer to such an extent as will enable Ireland to
contribute to the Imperial Treasury. During that
time Ireland cannot contribute to Imperial expendi-
ture, during that time England must help to build up

70 THE PRESENT FINANCIAL PROBLEM.

what she has destroyed. On what basis is this restitu-
tion to be made? I would suggest as follows. The
present cost of the Royal Irish Constabulary is
£1,351,500. This force is at present a military organ-
ization, maintained to support English government in
Ireland. It is, in other words, an Imperial force. It
could have no place in a healthy Irish state. As long
as it is maintained at its present strength England
should pay two-thirds of its cost, namely, £900,332.
This contribution would reduce Ireland's expenditure
on police to an equality with that spent on a normal
police force like the Scotch. Then take old-age pen-
sions. Old-age pensions in Ireland cost at present
£2,342,000. At least half of the destitution thu3
relieved is the aftermath of bad legislation, famine,
emigration, and over-taxation. I believe an Irish
Parliament could much reduce this sum by re-
modelling the Old-Age Pensions Act with an eye to
Irish social conditions, which are entirely unlike those
prevailing in England, or even in Scotland. Time will
reduce it also as the survivors of Ireland's larger popu-
lation disappear. One-third of the old-age pensions
would be a small amount for England to pay by way
of restitution, but it would suffice. This would mean,
adding together the contributions to police and pensions,
that England would pay about £1,600,000 per annum
into the Irish Exchequer, and this sum would be auto-
matically reduced as the old-age pensions and police
expenses became less — a small return for the three hun-
dred millions of over-taxation taken from Ireland since
the Union. It is not a question of generosity, but of
restitution. It is well for England to remember that
in this matter restitution means relief not only to
Ireland, but to England. Ireland is at present on the
way to national bankruptcy. It is better for England
to pay five shillings in the pound to Ireland now than
to have to pay twenty shillings in the pound later on.
These are the only two alternatives. To continue to
prescribe the Union as a cure is, as Professor Kettle
has pointed out, rather like prescribing alcohol as a
cure for delirium tremens. It is a remarkable thing

THE PRESENT FINANCIAL PROBLEM. 71

that the leading English experts on the Financial Com-
mission of 1893 outlined in their minority report the
very course events have since taken.* " Let us sup-
pose," they say, " that no change is made in the exist-
ing system, and that Ireland continues to contribute as
she does at present, the control of Irish receipts and
expenditure remaining where it now is. We have seen
that she now contributes, after paying her own
expenses, about £2,000,000 to the expenditure of the
Empire. But in 1859-60 she contributed £5,400,000.
This contribution has diminished steadily under the
present system in consequence of the increased cost of
administering Ireland, which has grown from
£2,300,000 in 1859-60 to £5,600,000 in 1893-94. Is it
not more than probable, even supposing the present
amount of taxation to be maintained, that the costs of
administering Ireland will, under the present system,
continue to increase, and that the surplus of £2,000,000
which she now contributes will be more and more
reduced till it becomes nil or is turned into a deficit?

. . . . It is, therefore, for the interest of the
British as well as the Irish taxpayer, to put an end to
the present system, and to give Ireland the control of
her own finances."

Since these words were written their truth has been
established by incontrovertible facts. But the finan-
cial problem they indicate is still unsolved. That pro-
blem can only be solved by giving Ireland equitable
financial restitution and a full measure of Home Rule.

* Report by Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, and Mr. Currie.

XIV.— JUSTICE, POLICE, AND THE POST
OFFICE.

THE provisions concerning the administration of
justice embodied in the Home Ptule Bill of 1893
were simple, and I think satisfactory. Briefly they
were as follows : The existing judges were to hold their
offices on the same conditions as before the Bill, and
were to be only removable, as formerly, on address from
both Houses of the English Parliament. Future judges
were to be appointed, by the Crown on the recommenda-
tion of the Irish Executive, and were to be removable
on an address from both Houses of the Irish Legisla-
ture. Other provisions protected the pensions and sala-
ries of the present and future judges, whilst not
preventing the Irish Executive from reducing those
salaries on future appointment if they thought fit.
Similar provisions applied, to present and future Civil
Servants. Two of the judges were to be permanently
appointed by the English Executive and called
Exchequer judges. Their salaries were to be paid by
the English Treasury, and their duties were to be to
decide all legal proceedings instituted at the instance
of or against the Treasury or Commissioners of Customs
or any of their officers, or which related to the election
of members to serve in the English Parliament, or
which touched any matter affected by a law which the
Irish Parliament had no power to repeal or alter, but
in order to give them jurisdiction it was necessary that
some party to the proceedings should require the case to
be heard before them or one of them. Any appeal from
their judgments was to lie direct to the English Privy
Council. Whilst not engaged in such special work the
Exchequer judges were to act as ordinary judges of the
Irish High Court. No appeal from any judge or court
in Ireland was to be made to the English House of
Lords, but to the Judicial Committee of the English

JUSTICE, POLICE, AND THE POST OFFICE. 73

Privy Council, as in the case of the self-governing
colonies.

On the hearing of such appeals, at least one member
of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was to
be an Irish judge, or an ex-Irish judge of the Supreme
Court. Power was also given to the Lord Lieutenant
to submit any constitutional question that might arise
affecting the powers of the Irish Legislature to the
Judicial Committee of the English Privy Council. The
Lord Lieutenant was to hold office for six years, and
any British subject was to be qualified to hold the posi-
tion without reference to his religious belief; thus
abolishing the law against a Catholic holding the office.
Let us now consider the question of police. Parnell
made it a sine qua non that the police should come
under the control of the Irish Executive, and from this
position no Irish Leader will now recede. The Eoyal
Irish Constabulary is a peculiar body. It is not a police
force proper, neither is it an army. Sometimes it is one
and sometimes it is the other. A meeting is to be sup-
pressed at Ballymoon, or an eviction to be carried out
at Carrigstone, it promptly becomes an army corps with
loaded rifles, pistols and swords. A publican is suspected
of breaking the licensing laws, and it promptly becomes
an ordinary police force, and lies in ambush for hours
to catch the thirsty mala-fide traveller. At the present
day the force consists of an Inspector-General, a Deputy
Inspector-General, three Assistant Inspector-Generals,
thirty-seven County Inspectors, 202 District Inspectors,
241 Head-Constables, and 10,195 Sergeants and Con-
stables. This enormous force would be almost sufficient
to hold India. It is purely an Imperial force, as no one
with any pretence to common-sense or sanity could
maintain that under normal conditions such a body
would be necessary to preserve law and order in Ire-
land. In addition to this armed body Dublin has a
special force of its own known as the Dublin Metro-
politan Police. It numbers 1,282 men, including
officers, and it is not a military force. It costs 8s. 2£d.
per head of population. The nearest approach to this
extravagant figure in the United Kingdom is Liverpool,

p

74 JUSTICE, POLICE, AND THE POST OFFICE.

bub there the police only cost 5s. 7|d. per head of popu-
lation. Under the Bill of 1893 both these forces were to
be gradually reduced and finally cease to exist, their
place being taken by local police forces under the con-
trol of the local authorities, as in England and else-
where. In 1893 the Local Government Act did not exist,
but it is obvious that under a new Home Eule Bill the
County Councils would be charged either by the Bill
or by the Irish Parliament with the management of the
new local police forces. In any event the E.I.C. and
the D.M.P. were to cease to exist within six years after
the summoning of the Irish Legislature. After the
passing of the Bill no new officers or men were to be
recruited, and the two forces were to be under the con-
trol of the Lord Lieutenant.

The expenditure on salaries and pensions in connec-
tion with these two police forces whilst they existed was
to be paid out of the Exchequer of the United King-
dom, but the Irish Exchequer was to repay two- thirds
of the amount so paid. In this connection, and with
reference to all pensions to judges, police, or other
former employees of the Imperial Government in Ire-
land, it may be pointed out that a pension is simply
deferred pay, and why should the future Irish Govern-
ment be charged with the deferred salaries which, in
the natural course of events, should have been paid out
of the Imperial Treasury? The creation of the local
police forces was to be carried out by Irish Act, the pro-
cedure being that the Executive Committee of the Irish
Privy Council certified to the Lord Lieutenant that a
local police force had been established in a certain dis-
trict, and within six months from such notice the
R.I.C. were to be withdrawn from that district, and
the force reduced by a proportionate number.

Within six months from the final establishment of
such local police forces all over Ireland, the R.I.C. and
the D.M.P. were to cease to exist. It is quite obvious
that a large body like the R.I.C. could not be disbanded
in a few months, nor would it be advisable to do so till a
local police force had been created to take their place ;
therefore I think these provisions are eminently reason-
able. In the new Bill we can expect no more, we ought

JUSTICE, POLICE, AND THE POST OFFICE. 75

to be contented with no less. Some at least of the
li.I.C. ought, owing to their training and experience,
to form the nucleus of the new local forces.

Under the Bill of 1893 the Post Office in
Ireland was to be placed under the control of
the Irish Parliament and Executive. We should
insist that in the new Bill a similar proviso
exist. The Post Office in Ireland, like many
other Government departments, is entirely out of touch
with the Irish people. Most of its responsible and pro-
minent officials are English. Promotion is practically
barred to its Irish Catholic officials.

Its methods are adopted to suit English requirements,
and it treats with contempt both the Irish language and
Irish manufacture. The Irish Post Office is at present
supposed to be run at a loss, and whilst we may be more
than a little sceptical on this point, the fact remains that
under proper Irish administration considerable saving
and reform ought to be effected in this department, with
results satisfactory not only to the Post Office officials
themselves, but to the public. The transfer of the Irish
Post Office to an Irish Executive would, of course, mean
the transfer of the Irish Post Office Savings Bank. The
prosperity of Ireland under Home Rule would re-act
favourably on the Irish Post Office and increase its
prosperity, whilst the adaptation of the postal service
to Irish commercial needs by an Irish Executive would
increase the revenue of the Post Office and the pros-
perity of the country.

XV.— THE PROBLEM OF THE INTOLERANT
MINORITY.

NO series of articles on Home Rule would be com-
plete without some consideration of the problem
which gives its title to this article. We have heard a
good deal lately about the intolerance of Catholics and
the policy of Conciliation, so much indeed that one is
inclined to wonder whether all sense of humour has
departed from this country. No one will dispute that
Catholics — particularly highly-placed Catholics — are
intolerant — to their fellow -Catholics. Nor can this be
greatly wondered at. The spirit of the slave is strong
within us still, and it has historical reasons for its
existence. Out of some 157 persons entrusted with the
government of Ireland since the Union, there have
been about sixteen only in touch with Irish public
opinion. There have been five only professing the
religion of the nation.*

If Napoleon had been successful one hundred years
ago in his schemes for the conquest of England, Eng-
land might now be governed by Frenchmen and
Catholics in the interests of France. Assume the
existence of a French colony, or the descendants of
French colonists, in the North of England (receiving all
the loaves and fishes which the Frenchmen at home
could spare), while the rest of England consisted
almost exclusively of Englishmen and Protestants "(who
were hewers of wood and drawers of water to the
privileged classes). That is a rough parallel to the
case of English rule in Ireland. It is this foreign
influence, this intolerant minority, which is responsible
for the Irish question as we know it to-day. " The
government of any nation," said Mr. Carlisle, the first
Resident Commissioner of the National Schools in

Dublin Castle. By R. Barry O'Brien. P. 17.

THE PROBLEM OF THE INTOLERANT MINORITY. 77

Ireland, " must necessarily partake of the character,
particularly of the religious character, of the nation."
The administration of England will stand this test.
The administration of Ireland will not.*

The reason is not far to seek. The Union was made,
not with the Irish nation, but with the Protestant
Party in Ireland ; not indeed, be it said to their credit,
with the whole of that party, but with the corrupt
majority of it. There were some Protestants — men
like Charles Kendal Bushe — who were incorruptible.
The fruits of this alliance and this corruption are still
with us. In 1798 Cornwallis wrote to Pitt: " It has
always appeared to me a desperate measure for the
British Government to make an irrevocable alliance
with a small party in Ireland (which party has derived
all its consequence from, and is in fact entirely depen-
dent upon, the British Government), and to wage
eternal war against the Papists." The warning passed
unheeded. Lord Redesdale was sent as Lord Chan-
cellor in 1802. He struck the keynote of the Union
policy. " The Catholics," he wrote, " must have no
more political power." And again — " I have said that
this country must be kept for some time as a garrisoned
country. I meant a Protestant garrison." One hun-
dred years has not made this statement less true. We
find only the other day a modern, if somewhat more
stupid, representative of the same class proclaiming
publicly that he and his kind are " England's faithful
garrison in Ireland." The Union had been made with
a "party," and the "nation" was to be governed
through that party in the interests of England alone.
The process has continued down to the present day.
Catholic Emancipation came, and people thought
things would change. But they were soon disillusioned.
This is how Mr. Lecky describes the character of the
Irish administration four years after the Catholic Relief
Act had passed into law : —

In 1853— four years after Catholic Emancipation— there was not
in Ireland a single Catholic judge or stipendary magistrate. All
the high sheriffs, with one exception; the overwhelming majority

t Dublin Castle. P. 18.

78 THE PROBLEM OF THE INTOLERANT MINORITY.

of the unpaid magistrates and of the grand jurors, the five
inspectors general, and the thirty-two sub-inspectors of police were
Protestants. The chief towns were in the hands of narrow,
corrupt, and, for the most part, intensely bigoted corporations.
Even in a Whig Government not a single Irishman had a seat in
the Cabinet, and the Irish Secretary was Mr. Stanley, whose im-
perious manners and unbridled temper had made him intensely
hated. For many years promotion had been steadily withheld
from those who advocated Catholic Emancipation, and the
majority of the people thus found their bitterest enemies in the
foremost places.

Let us turn now to the present Government of Ire-
land. In a country of which three-fourths of the popula-
tion are Catholic there has not been a Catholic Viceroyi
since 1688. There never was a Catholic Chief Secrc-^
tary. There have been three Catholic Under-Secre-
taries. There have been two Catholic Chancellors.
In the High Court of Justice there are seventeen
judges: three of them are Catholics. There are 21
County Court Judges and Kecorders; 8 of them are
Catholics. There are 37 County Inspectors of Police ;
5 of them are Catholics. There are 202 District In-
spectors of Police; 62 of them are Catholics. There
are over five thousand Justices of the Peace ; a little
more than one-fifth of them are Catholics. There are
68 Privy Councillors; 8 of them are Catholics.'* Let
us now consider some of the large Government Depart-
ments. Take the Local Government Board. This
body consists of two elements — the nominated and
highly-paid officials, and those who secure admission
througn competitive examinations. From the latter
class Catholics cannot, of course, be excluded. The
permanent Vice-President is to all intents and pur-
poses the Local Government Board. He is a Protes-
tant and a Unionist. Of the three Commis-
sioners two are Protestants, one a Catholic. On
the permanent staff we find 47 nominated officials, 34
of whom are Protestants, and the balance of 13
Catholics. The 34 Protestants draw an average yearly
salary of £653 13s., while the average yearly salary of
the 13 Catholic officials only amounts to £580. On

* Dublin Castle. P. 78.

THE PROBLEM OF THE INTOLERANT MINORITY. 79

the permanent staff created by competitive examina-
tion the story is very different. Here we find 43
Catholics and 25 Protestants. Brains and ability
could not be kept out. But what about their remunera-
tion ? The average salary of the 43 Catholics amounts
to £207 13s. 6d., while that of the 25 Protestants is
£304 8s. Can any sensible man believe there is no
favour here? Pass on to the Chief Secretary's Office.
Only one out of every six of the officials in this office
are Catholics. Take the Board of Works, the
three Commissioners and Secretary are all Pro-
testants. ,The newest Irish Department is the
Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction.
Surely we shall find Catholics getting fair play there?
The facts are the reverse. The five principal officials
draw salaries to the tune of £5,000 a year. One is a
Catholic. The appointment of this one Catholic
created more commotion amongst the intolerant
minority than any recent episode of Irish departmental
history. The man who made the appointment was
driven out of public life. At the head of the Agricul-
tural Branch are three officials drawing salaries of
£954, £620, and £365 respectively. All of them are
Protestants. All of the officials at the head of the
Technical Instruction Branch are Protestants. At the
head of the Fisheries Branch is a Protestant clergy-
man with a handsome salary and expenses, and eight
or nine other officials, all Protestants. The Chief
Veterinary Inspector the two Assistant Inspectors,
the Curator of the Science and Art Museum, the Head
Librarian at the National Library and his three
assistants, are all Protestants. Will any sane man
suggest that this extraordinary state of things is the
result of a mere accident ? This policy of "No Catholic
Need Apply " does not stop with the Government
Departments. It permeates the whole social and com-
mercial life of Ireland. It is within the recollection of
us all that it was only within the last few years, and as
the result of a fierce struggle, that the railway com-
panies agreed to open their clerical positions to com-
petitive examination and so give Catholic boys a chance
of entering their service. At that time, of the forty-

80

THE PROBLEM OF THE INTOLERANT MINORITY.

seven highest paid positions in the Great Southern and
Western Kailway only two were held by Catholics.
Out of 59 clerks employed at the Broadstone Terminus
of the Midland Kailway 50 are Protestants. While in
the Great Northern Railway out of every £1 paid to the
staff in salaries only three shillings goes to Catholics.
In the banks and great commercial houses the same
state of things exists. In the Provincial Bank of Ire-
land only one-seventeenth of the salaries paid goes to
Catholics. There are 302 Protestants employed by this
bank, with incomes amounting to £58,185, and 29
Catholics with £3,665. Contrast with this the Munster
and Leinster Bank, which is a Catholic Bank, with a
majority of Catholic directors, where the majority
of the managers are Protestants.

The following list shows the principal public posi-
tions held by Protestants in two of the leading Southern
counties — Cork and Waterford. Many of these posi-
tions are in the gift of Catholic public bodies. 1
should like to see a similar list of positions held by
Catholics in Belfast and Derry ; where the persecution
and intolerance exist would then become apparent: —

County Cork.

County Waterford.

High Sheriff of County.

Sub-Sheriff of County.

High Sheriff of City.

Clerk of Crown and Peace
(East Riding).

Registrar of Probate Court.

Local Registrar of Title.

Two Surveyors of Taxes.

Engineer to Harbour Board.

Head Master Technical School.

Seven Instructors Technical
School.

Nine Professors University
College.

Three Lecturers, University Col-
lege.

One Crown Solicitor.

High Sheriff of County.

Sub-Sheriff of County.

County Surveyor and two assis-
tants.

Clerk of the Crown and Peace.

Secretary to County Council.

Registrar of Probate Court.

Local Registrar of Title.

Surveyor of Taxes.

Collector of Customs.

Governor of the Jail.

Secretary to Harbour Board.

Engineer to Harbour Board.

Two Engineers appointed by
Joint Bridge Committee.

Clerk of Works to New Bridge.

Superintendent of Co. Asylum.

Crown Solicitor.

THE PROBLEM OF THE INTOLERANT MINORITY.

81

County Cork.

County WaterforaV

Chairman Public Works Com-
mittee, Cork Corporation.

Chairman Waterworks Com-
mittee, Cork Corporation.

Chairman Fitz-Gerald Park
Committee.

Chairman Technical Instruc-
tion Committee.

Public Librarian.

Secretary Cornmarket Com-
mittee.

Senior Rate Collector.

Head of Fire Brigade

Principal Draughtsman, City
Engineer's Office.

Solicitor to County Council.

One County Court Judge.

All Resident Magistrates.

All County Inspectors R.I.C.

15 District Inspectors R.I.C.
out of 17.

Secretary of Savings Bank and
all Clerks except one.

Postmaster Cork City.

Manager of Labour Exchange.

Two Veterinary Inspectors.

Chief Inspector of Schools.

Majority of Managers of Mun-
ster and Leinster Bank.

General Manager and all chief
officials of Cork, Bandon, and
South Coast Railway.

Goneral Manager, Cork, Black-
rock and Passage Railway.

Secretary, Manager, and all
chief officials of Cork Electric
Tramways Co.

Manager, Secretary, and prin-
cipal officials City of Cork
Steam Packet Co.

Two Resident Magistrates.
Two District Inspectors R.I.C.
Senior Poor Rate Collector.
Actuary of Savings Bank.
Postmaster and Assistant.
Female Technical Teacher,

Technical School.
Assistant Technical Teacher,

Technical School.
Manual Instructor, Technical

School.
Commercial Teacher, Technical

School.
Art Master, Technical School.
Engineering Instructor, Tech-
nical School.
Assistant Science Teacher,

Technical School.
Head Nurse, Co. Infirmary.
Board of Works Engineer.
Postal Inspector.
Veterinary Inspector.
Secretary to Fishery Board.
Manager of Gas Works.
Chief Inspector of Schools.
All salaried staff of Strang-

man's Brewery.
Majority of Staff of Graves and

Co-
Majority of Staff of Steamship

Co.
All the Staff of Clyde Shipping

Co.
Majority of Staff of Great

Southern and Western Ely.
Majority of Staff of Waterford

and Tramore Railway.
Majority of Staff of Hall and

Co.
Majority of Staff of H. Denny

and Co.
Majority of Staff of Matterson
and Co.

" Freeman's Journal," May 18th, 1911.

82 THE PROBLEM OF THE INTOLERANT MINORITY.

In considering these lists one must also remember
that in the County of Cork there are 365,724 CatholicB
and 88,887 Protestants. In County Waterford there
are 82,556 Catholics and 4,631 Protestants. Comment
is needless.

Is it any wonder that the intolerant minority in Ire-
land are afraid of Home Rule? The reason is not far
to seek. They know that Home Rule means equal
opportunity for every Irishman. They know that the
coming of Home Rule means the end of the ascendancy
of any creed or any intolerant minority in the govern-
ment of Ireland. They cannot fear for themselves,
because their positions will be amply safeguarded by
any Home Rule Bill that may be introduced. They
know, also, that the Irish popular bodies where com-
posed of Irish Catholics have penalised no man on
account of his religion. Their real fear is for their
party. In the changing stress and storm of a new and
healthy political life based upon national needs and
national policy there will be no room for a party of
selfish placehunters whose whole aim is the mainten-
ance of a corrupt sectarian ascendancy. But someone
may ask, " What of Ulster?" I remember asking a
prominent Irish politician some time ago whether he
thought that Ulster would fight in the event of Home
Rule.* " Yes," he said, "Ulster will fight for the lead-
ing positions and the legislative plums in a Home Rule
Parliament. We fought for the Land Acts; Ulster
benefited most by them. We fought for local govern-
ment; Ulster has not been slow to use it to advance
her position. We fought for a University. Belfast
has got her University. You here in Cork have got a
University College." Who can doubt that this is the
truth? Who can doubt that the only real solution of
the problem of the intolerant minority in Ireland is the
spirit of real toleration and conciliation that will grow
and fructify within the walls ot an Irish Parliament?
The Irish question is not in the ultimate analysis a
question of "Catholic" or "Protestant" appoint-
ments by a foreign government. Ireland wants 7ns h
appointments — Catholic and Protestant — by a National
Government.

* At the last General Election the voting of the whole province
showed a majority of 1,298 in favour of Home Rule. 16 out of its
33 members are Nationalists. Ulster threatened to fight on two
former occasions, namely, when Catholic Emancipation was granted
and the Irish Church Disestablished. The threats never materialised.

XVI.— CONCLUSION.

THE late Queen Victoria summed up in a single
sentence three hundred years of Irish history.
" Beally," she wrote, "it is quite immoral, with Ire-
land quivering in our grasp and ready to throw off her
allegiance at any moment, for us to force Austria to
give up her lawful possessions.*

No matter where we begin to discuss the question of
Ireland's present condition we shall always come back
to the central and dominating fact that Ireland is
governed by the public opinion of another country.
The Irish people are naturally loyal, but they have no
free institutions to be loyal to. Ireland is governed in
the ultimate analysis by an English Chief Secretary,
who combines as many executive functions as Pooh-
Bah, and by an unknown Treasury official. Both of
them, when it so pleases the en, can snap their fingers
at Irish public opinion. Ministries come and go, but
the Treasury official remains, and so one may naturally
suppose he has the more permanent control.

The secret of England's success as a colonising
power is to be sought for in exactly the opposite direc-
tion to that which has so far made her government of
Ireland a failure. Sir Edward Grey, the present
Foreign Secretary, has well stated the foundation of
that secret. Speaking at the dinner given to the
Colonial Premiers on Friday, April 19th, 1907, he
said: —

The history of our relations with our self-governing colonies
had been a great chapter in the history of freedom. Freedom
gave to self-governing colonies the power to develop their coun-
tries, and, what was more important, the special excellences of
their race and character, in the environment of the country in
which they lived. That was a great gift— the rower to develop—
which freedom gave. But it had another gift— namely, that of
healing. In the history of one of our great colonies we had

•"Letters of Queen Victoria." Vol. II. P. 237.

84 CONCLUSION.

already seen how it could heal wounds and strife, and bring races
together, and we were confident, in our latest self-governing
colony, the healing gift of freedom would be equally potent, and
we all felt that the tie between the mother country and the
colonies was now one which combined the advantages of union
with the privileges of independence.

It is this power to develop and heal which has been
denied to Ireland both spiritually and materially. Ire-
land's trade was killed by English laws. Ireland's chil-
dren were left in ignorance of Ireland's history and Ire-
land's language. But the seed of development is not
dead. The Gaelic League has nourished and revived the
national life of our country. The industrial and agri-
cultural interests have been helped by better land
laws and the industrial revival. It is, however, certain
that Ireland can never develop her national life and
national prosperity to full fruition until she controls her
own domestic affairs. A prosperous and loyal Ireland
is the certain result of a generous measure of Home
Rule. A prosperous Ireland will be the best invest-
ment England ever made. These articles have been
quite useless if they have not shown that the continu-
ance of the present condition of affairs must inevitably
mean a growing demand on England's Treasury, and
eventually an insolvent Ireland. This is due quite as
much to ignorant and extravagant administration as to
Ireland's poverty. The Department of Agriculture
and Technical Instruction has, of late years, endea-
voured, as far as possible, to compile a return of Irish
imports and exports. The story these figures disclose
is an eminently hopeful one. The total import and
export trade at Irish ports in 1909 is estimated at
£125,675,847, as compared with £117,017,768 in 1908,
an increase of £8,658,079. The imports amounted to a
total of £63,947,155, and the exports to a total of
£61,728,692. The increase in the estimated value of
the trade in 1909, as compared with 1908, has taken
place both in imports and exports, the increase in
imports amounting to £4,940,278 and in exports to
£3,717,801. These figures show that Ireland indus-
trially is on the up grade.* It is true that 1908 was
generally an unfavourable year in the annals of trade,

*The improvement? is not due to Unionist Policy, but to the
policy which the Unionists have consistently opposed, namely, the
policy and labour?: of the Irish Party.

CONCLUSION. 85

but the figures for 1909 show an increase of £4,281,233
even over 1907, which was the best previous year for
which records are available. On the other hand, the
emigration statistics shown no sign of decrease. No
one can doubt, however, that Ireland's trade is capable
of infinite development under an Irish government,
and that this development would be bound to re-act
favourably on English trade. Before I conclude this
series I should like to mention a suggestion made to
me by a friend with regard to the Irish Second
Chamber, or Legislative Council, which I think is
eminently worthy of consideration. He thinks that
" high franchise " proposals for the upper house are
not likely to work, and that both parties in a lower
house would eventually unite in attacking an upper
house elected on a restricted franchise.

He suggests as an alternative that the Legislative
Council or Upper House should be elected by six con-
stituencies, as follows : —

Dublin Belfast

Leinster (rest of) Ulster (rest of)

Munster Connaught.

The Council to consist of sixty members distributed
amongst these six seats, according to population, and
elected by a system of proportional representation.
The Lower House or Legislative Chamber to be elected
on the same franchise as the Upper, but by smaller
constituencies. He also suggests that the age limit for
the Lower House should be 25, and for the Upper
House 40. I think this plan would be preferable in
many ways to that of the Bill of 1893. It is obvious
that the more discussion we have about the details of
Home Eule the more likely are we to get a good work-
able Bill suited to Irish conditions. With that object
in view these articles have been written. They are in
no sense of the word an expert or official exposition of
the subject. The demand for Home Eule is not a
thing of yesterday, and Englishmen need not delude
themselves with vain hopes that Ireland is likely to give

86 CONCLUSION.

it up. It may be that we are about to realise our ambi-
tions, but in any event we will certainly not cease fight-
ing for them. Irish history proves beyond contention the
tenacity of the Irish people in sticking to their political
ideals. Catholic Emancipaton was opposed as
vehemently and as bitterly as Home Rule. For
twenty-eight years the struggle went on. Ireland won.
Then there was the agitation for the removal of the
Tithes and the Disestablishment of the Irish Protestant
Church. There were more delays, more violent
struggles, more makeshifts. The Liberals of that day
tried to shirk the question. The Fenians came, and
the Established Church was swept away on a sea of
revolt. Lord Salisbury once said that it would be safer
to give Ireland Home Rule than Local Government.
His nephew introduced and carried a sweeping measure
of Irish Local Government in 1898. It has been a
triumphant success, and is, of course, an overwhelm-
ing argument for Home Rule. The agitation for a
National University was similarly impeded, similarly
shelved, and similarly triumphant. Even the very
agitation for Home Rule — the backbone of all Irish
agitation — has had ite. " dark and evil days." Most of
us can remember the dark hours before and after
ParnelFs death, when all Ireland was plunged into
strife and turmoil, when brother fought with brother,
and the Home Rule movement seemed to have sunk
for ever in a welter of hopeless anarchy. It is now
alive and strong, and the man who counts on killing it,
either by kindness or coercion, is living in a fool's
paradise. " Sin e av\ ce^c, ^n ceajit *oo •DeAn-Arii,"
says the Irish proverb, " the right way is the just
way." Home Rule is the just solution of Ireland's
difficulties, if England will but read them aright.
For the people of Ireland the granting of Home Rule
will open up a great future and a great past. It will
not in itself save Ireland, but it will give Ireland the
means of saving herself. It will teach the Irish people
the great principle of national responsibility, that if
they are to have the rights of a nation they must also
undertake the duties of a nation. It will open the door

CONCLUSION. 87

to an enduring and equitable alliance between England
and America, and thus do much to preserve the
peace of the world. It will, above all, in the words of a
great Irishman,* " haste a the day of true union and real
reconciliation between the people of Ireland and the
people of Great Britain ; and with the advent of that
true union and reconciliation, there will be dispelled,
and dispelled for ever, the cloud, the weighty cloud,
that has rested on the history of a noble race, and
dimmed the glory of a mighty Empire."

*Lord Russell of Killowen. Close of speech at Parnell Commission.

Just Published.
THE CASE FOR HOME RULE.

Stated by Stephen Gwynn. With an Introduc-
tion by John E. Redmond. Demy 8vo. Paper,
is. net. Cloth, 2s. net.

CONTENTS.

Why is Home Rule Withheld from Ireland ? — Detailed
Review of English Rule in Ireland — Period of the
Penal Laws — Opinions on the Period of the Penal
Laws and on Grattan's Parliament — Ireland Under the
Union — How the Union Stands To-day — Irish Local
Administration — Is Home Rule Separation ? — Will Pro-
testants be Persecuted Under Home Rule ? — Will
Ulster Fight ? — The Alleged Prevalence of Crime in
Ireland — The Canadian Analogy — Can Ireland Pay Her
Way ? — Answers to Objections — Precedents for Home
Rule — Index.

Irish Nationalists . . . must complete the education of
;he opponents of Home Rule whether they be Ulster Orange-
men or English Tories, by putting forward in the fullest and
most convincing statement the reasons which make Home Rule
the first essential of any statesman-like policy either in Great
Britain or Ireland. The . . . task has rarely been more
satisfactorily approached than by Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., in
his latest book " The Case for Home Rule." . . . Nothing
could be better for the argumentative fortunes of Home Rule than
that it should be put into the hands of every honest Unionist. It
is a compendium, put together with Mr. Gwynn's accustomed
lucidity and skill in arrangement, of all the various lines of reason-
ing which converge inevitably upon Home Rule. . . . Mr. John
Redmond, at whose request the book has been compiled, con-
tributes a Preface summing up the argument of the rest of the
book — a preface which is a very succinct and cogent piece of
political reasoning — no fair-minded Unionist can possibly read
it . . without feeling its effects on his Anti-Home Rule

convictions.

. . . Mr Gwynn's admirable summary of the Irish case. It
is not enough to have an overwhelming case ; it is necessary to state
that case effectively ; and that service is performed by this book
and its preface. — Freeman's Journal

HOME RULE FINANCE. An Experiment
in Justice. By T. M. Kettle. Price is. net.

The finance of Home Rule is the question of the hour.
The whole political future of Ireland hinges on the
principles adopted in the framing of the money clauses
of the Home Rule Bill. This book is an exhaustive
memorandum on the subject from the pen of Mr. T.
M. Kettle, whose mastery of all the details is well known,
and whose power of making figures human and inter-
esting is unsurpassed. Certain fragments of the memor-
andum have already attracted universal attention and
criticism. It now appears in its complete form, with a
reply to criticisms and statistical appendices. Powerfully
written, it is a volume indispensable to every Irishman,
Nationalist, or Unionist, and constitutes an invaluable
handbook of the Irish case.

" Professor Kettle's brilliantly written little book should be
read and re-read by those who wish to understand the central facts
of the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland. His
sparkling and epigramatic paragraphs will convince where the
ordinary financial expert's processions of figures only bewilder.
Even Home Rulers do not always realise the violence of the blow,
or series of blows, which the Union has struck at the roots of Irish
prosperity. We hope Professor Kettle's valuable statemeut will
be read not only by these, but by practical business men on the
Unionist side."

— The Daily News.

" This is by far the ablest and most important statement that
has yet been made in the present phase of the financial relations
question. ... A brilliant and most effective piece of work."

Irish Ecclesiastical Record.

"The memorandum is well calculated to stimulate thought
and to provoke action." — Irish Independent.

" A complete and masterly grip of the whole subject of inter-
national finance. . . . A very arsenal of facts and figures,
indispensable to a proper understanding or an effective advocacy
of Irish self-government." — Glasgow Star.

" In this little book . . . facts and figures are given in suffi-
cient abundance to satisfy the most enthusiastic statistician that
under Home Rule Ireland might be perfectly solvent."

— Catholic Herald.

IRELAND AND THE HOME RULE MOVE-
MENT. By Michael F. J. McDonnell. With

a Preface by John Redmond. Cr. 8vo. Cloth,
2S. net. Paper cover, is. net.

" Mr. McDonnell traverses the whole ground of the controversy
between the British Parliament and the Irish Party, dealing- in
turn with the executive, the land question, the religious question,
the educational problem, the financial, social, and political rela-
tions between Great Britain and Ireland. He has facts and
figures at his finger-ends, and puts his points with much ability,
and without an undue use of rhetoric." — Glasgow Herald.

"In 'Ireland and the Home Rule Movement' Mr. McDonnell
has written a very"useful account of the National movement, and
the social and economic conditions of Ireland to-day." — West-
minster Gazette.

" Marked by its wealth of telling points and apt historical illus-
trations .... Mr. McDonnell strikes us as especially effective in
his chapter on the religious question." — Manchester Guardian.

" In a short preface the National Leader commends this work,
* especially to Englishmen and Scotchmen, as a thoughtful, well-
informed and scholarly study of several of the more important
features of the Irish question. ' Even those who are in most direct
conflict with the author's opinions will not cavil at the adjectives
. . . his style is clear, his language restrained." — Morning J-'ost*

LABOUR IN IRISH HISTORY. By James
Connolly. 2s. 6d. net.

This work by Mr. James Connolly, the well-known Irish-
American Labour Leader, will be invaluable, for those who desire
to gain a knowledge as to the relations between the great
political movements of the past in Ireland, and the hopes and
struggles of the toiling masses.

Beginning with a careful resume of the effects of the rupture
with Gaelic traditions, laws and language, it deals with the social
aspect of the various phases of the Irish National struggle for
the past two centuries, and the part which the labour question
played in these historical episodes. The work will form an indis-
pensable handbook for all engaged in democratic propaganda in
Ireland.

THE UNITED IRISHWOMEN: Their Work,

Place, and Ideals. By Sir Horace Plunkett, Ellice
Pilkington, and George Russell (JE). 6d. net.

"The United Irishwomen mean to show that the art of rural
life is in their hands ; that they, by helping the men, can make all
the difference between barely tolerable progress and gratifying
success; that a large part of agricultural science is women's work,
and that the beauty and comfort of rural homes happen to be a
part of agricultural science ; and, finally, that amusements may be
organized in parish halls as well as in the indifferent theatres of
small towns. As all this is perfectly true, we cannot see any
reason why the United Irishwomen should not prove it to be true.
We sincerely hope that they will. They have on their side women
of culture, experience, courage, humour, and patience. It is a fine
movement. . . . We believe in this movement because it is
radically sound." — The Spectator.

NOBLESSE OBLIGE: AN IRISH RENDERING
By Horace Plunkett. Boards, is. net. Paper
cover, 6d. net. £sg

" With the eloquence and persuasiveness born or sincerity and
great knowledge, and with an unequalled authority . . . Sir
Horace Plunkett has just addressed to the members of his class an
inspiriting appeal." — Sydney Brooks (in The National Review).

" Sir Horace Plunkett makes this appeal in so temperate and
reasonable a way, he shows so much common sense and such
knowledge of the problem with which he is dealing — in short, he is
so much himself, so consistent with his own record of disinterested
patriotism — that we leave it without further comment than an un-
qualified commendation to our readers. . . . An outsider
cannot do- better than admire and be silent.'' — Spectator.

"Sir Horace Plunkett's admirable pamphlet . . .strikes the
high note of patriotism and moral obligation with such penetrating
force and sweetness that it can hardly fail to deepen and quicken
the social sense of anyone who reads it." — Glasgow Herald.

" The appeal is set out with Sir Horace Plunkett' s usual fineness
and delicacy of expression, and with all that curious moderation
of thought which has already made him so effective;" — Manchester
Guardian.

CLERICAL INFLUENCES. An Essay on
Irish Sectarianism and English Government.
By W. E. H. Lecky. Edited with an Introduc-
tion by W. E. G. LLoyd and F. Cruise O'Brien,
M.A. Paper, 6d. net. Cloth, is. net.

Originally published in the first edition of Leaders of 'Public Opinion,
the essay was omitted from the subsequent editions.

2 9

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